Any good propagandist knows that "words matter." And as propaganda is the raison d'être for Fox News, Fox talkers know the value of using an incendiary, emotionally charged term when a more reasonable term could and should be used. The use of incendiary, emotionally charged rhetoric is nowhere more important than in the 'pro-life' community who, in order to shame and vilify abortion providers and women who have abortions, use terms like "baby killing" to describe the legal termination of a fetus as "killing" and abortion doctors as "killers." This vocabulary contributes to a climate of hate in which abortion doctors are murdered, as happened to Dr. George Tiller who was frequently denounced by Bill O'Reilly as a "baby killer." Tiller is gone; but O'Reilly still maintains, as fact, that abortion is "killing babies" - a point made during his interview with the attorney for Dr. Gosnell. Gosnell was found guilty of murdering babies after birth. Abortion doctors, unless adjudicated otherwise, are performing a safe, legal procedure. Big difference; but not for O'Reilly whose toxic words shouldn't matter, but sadly do.

O'Reilly's interview with Gosnell attorney, Jack McMahon, was far less contentious than the haranguing that he took from an unhinged Megyn Kelly. But despite the almost avuncular tone of the interview, the intent of both interviews was the same; i.e., to shame McMahon for defending a man who, according to the Fox News sensationalist coverage, was on a par with Hitler. The coverage was part of Fox's pander to the anti-choice zealots whose conflation of Gosnell with safe, legal abortion buttresses their crusade to ban abortion. Kelly set up her interview to revisit anti-choice talking points about the horrors of Gosnell's clinic (with no discussion of what drove women to it) and, in the use of the talking points, reprimand McMahon for not denouncing Gosnell. Although O'Reilly was more subtle, he did manage to articulate the requisite anti-choice agitprop in attempting to shame McMahon for supporting a man who, according to O'Reilly, not only criminally killed babies; but, in also performing legal abortions, is still a killer.

O'Reilly immediately engaged in a "gotcha." He used McMahon's complimentary comments, about the Gosnell jury, to suggest that McMahon is "convinced" of Gosnell's guilt. McMahon responded that the jury did its job but that he doesn't believe that the state established that the fetuses were born alive. To O'Reilly's question of why Gosnell did the illegal late term abortions, McMahon spoke of the desperation of young girls - something that you didn't hear much about during Fox's tabloid coverage. O'Reilly seized on that comment to ask if Gosnell was being a humanitarian. When McMahon said that Gosnell was trying to help the girl, used in the example, O'Reilly worked in the anti-choice shaming agitprop by asking if Gosnell had any "conscience about the children he aborted."  After McMahon praised Gosnell's character, O'Reilly continued: "But didn't you ask him, 'Hey do you feel bad for the kids that you terminated.' Because he got charged and convicted on these three but there are hundreds that he did." 

To McMahon's defense of Gosnell, O'Reilly cited claims of those who worked with Gosnell. O'Reilly wanted to know what was in Gosnell's mind because "those babies will never exist on this planet." (And if the women went to other abortion doctors, the net result would have been the same, hello.)  When McMahon said that there's a difference between abortion and killing, Bill went full tilt pro-life propaganda: "Abortion is killing the fetus, abortion is killing the fetus." (Medically, it is the removal of the fetus, "killing" is a value judgment imposed by those who oppose abortion and certainly not embraced by the legal, medical, and pro-choice religious traditions).

O'Reilly was skeptical of McMahon's belief that Gosnell was singled out because he was black. When McMahon said that O'Reilly is a fool if the doesn't think that there is racial injustice in the criminal justice system O'Reilly spewed this bit of hubris which will live in Bill O'Reilly infamy: "Oh, I might be a fool because I always go on provable facts, not speculation." (His unfounded accusations about Dr. Tiller were "provable facts?" Really?) Civil rights activist Bill O'Reilly told McMahon that if he had any evidence of racial targeting of doctors, he wanted to know so he could "do a story on it."

So there you have it ladies. If you are in a situation in which carrying a pregnancy to term is unfeasible, for whatever reason, Bill O'Reilly says you're a baby killer. And you know he's right because he knows what's best for your body. Nuff said.