“Superman” Dean Cain invoked his recent cinematographic effort, the anti-choice movie “Gosnell,” to egregiously lie about New York’s new abortion law. His Fox Friends were there to help validate the disinformation.
As the media arm for the anti-choice movement, Fox News wasted no time in helping Cain spread “pro-life” lies and propaganda.
Cohost Ainsley Earhardt, “who loves Jesus and cannot hide it,” immediately put the conservative theme in motion: “The left this week hailing New York Democratic governor for passing a historic bill legalizing abortion up until birth.” (FACT CHECK – only abortions done if the health of the mother is threatened or the fetus is not viable are permitted after 24 weeks. Previously, late-term abortions were only allowed if the life of the mother was at risk.)
The banner reinforced the “pro-life” outrage: “Liberal lawmakers push for pro-abortion laws.”
Cohost Steve Doocy noted that Vermont is introducing a similar bill “that would make late term abortions a constitutional right.” (FACT CHECK – the new law codifies the right to an abortion, at any time, in Vermont in accordance with their current law.)
Cohost Ed Henry supposedly referenced deceased New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s views of late-term abortion. Henry said, “Partial-birth abortion is close, [Monynihan] believed, to infanticide and yet now, this very state, where he lived and served for so long, is basically saying it’s all good.” (FACT CHECK – there is no such thing as a “partial birth abortion.” It’s a term coined by anti-choice activists and used by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their lobbying against a form of late-term abortion, “intact dilation and evacuation.” It is federally banned except in cases involving life or health of the mother.)
At that point, Cain weighed in. He’s not a doctor or a lawyer, but he does know lots about abortion because he played a police detective in the movie “Gosnell,” which is about the Philadelphia abortion doctor convicted of murder and other charges related to illegal, late-term abortion.
Of course, Fox & Friends helped Cain pimp his ‘hit” movie.
Cain TOLD A BIG FAT LIE when he said that the New York law and the proposed Vermont law “would make the crimes of Kermit Gosnell legal.” He then explained the crimes of Dr. Gosnell which included performing late-term abortions. Dean claimed that this “would be legal in New York.” (FACT CHECK – Gosnell stabbed live babies in the neck which is criminal)
An outraged Steve Doocy LIED when he said that in New York, abortion will be legal "up to birth, it’s up to 9 months, if you change your mind the day before the baby's gonna be born, you can have an abortion.” (Shades of Bill O’Reilly talking about irresponsible women having abortions for frivolous reasons.)
Dean agreed that such a thing was possible because the law cites “the health of the mother” and that’s “fungible.” He added that this makes sense if the fetus isn’t viable and encouraged the audience to see Gosnell. (So if you’re going to die, all bets are off?)
Video was played from the newly available (Get’em while they’re hot!) Gosnell DVD. Cain said the worst thing he learned from the movie is "what happens during late-term abortions" which is dubious because Gosnell's actions were not, in any way, similar to authorized, late-term abortions.
As the saying goes, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” and in the case of abortion, misinformation can lead to the deaths of late-term abortion providers and clients. Remember Bill O'Reilly and the murder of Dr. Tiller? Just when you think Fox & Friends can’t get any more contemptible, think again!
Watch the lies below, from the January 25, 2019 Fox & Friends.
Doctors do not perform late-term procedures frivolously, and they always work to protect life. The notion that the goal is to kill a baby is one that Right Wingers seem to want to invent here. There are multiple scenarios where a late-term pregnancy gets into serious medical trouble, and they don’t involve a viable baby. They can involve a situation where the baby is in fact already dead or where something catastrophic has happened and there is no way to save both.
The Right Wing has no moral high ground to presume to lecture anyone on this subject.
The reality about the New York legislation is that it is about health and medical procedures, but these guys have no patience for actually trying to learn that. They just want to attack any abortion procedure as “murder”. And of course they are happy to play up the actions of someone like Kermit Gosnell as that of a typical doctor, when he was anything but.
My impression is that they are trying to help lay the foundation for the upcoming Supreme Court gutting of Roe v Wade within the next couple of years. One part of this is absolutely this nonsense about women just having frivolous abortion procedures two days before their due date. As though anyone would ever actually do anything like that. Another part has been the Right Wing’s attempt to sneak in this notion that a woman who has been raped should be told that she must bear any child that could possibly result from such a thing. And on top of the first two risible thoughts, we have the Right Wing trying to reset the goal posts to just say that from the moment of conception, any step whatsoever to terminate the chemical processes should be considered “murder”.
I believe this is intended to set up a series of Supreme Court rulings, which we’ll see coming from various deep Red states. One will be a ruling to allow states like Mississippi and Alabama to outlaw abortion procedures within their state boundaries under “states’ rights”. That one will be a crippling blow, but it won’t finish off Roe – it will just mean that for at least half of the country, this right will no longer exist. The next steps will chip away at the notion of when we should legally consider an embryo to be a person – something the Right Wing will try to define as the moment that any chemical process begins. (I would note that there is a real danger that these guys will try to push this all the way into not allowing people to use protection of any kind on the basis that this is somehow interfering with “life”.)
The point for the Right Wing in trying out these talking points now is to set up the vocabulary of how they will be discussing the issue as these cases come before the Supreme Court. So they raise false dilemmas and straw house arguments, and then proceed to act as though they have a moral high ground. When in fact what they are doing is guaranteed to cause major medical problems and likely will result in deaths. The Right Wing should not be allowed to make these arguments without being challenged each time, or we risk them getting away with resetting the narrative. For example, notice how every Right Winger tries to refer to the Russian dossier information about Donald Trump as “paid for by Hillary”. They put that in every time and most Dems don’t even discuss it, so it’s taken as a given. Except that it’s a LIE. The Steele Dossier was created with money from Republican campaigns and was only finished with funding from Dems after the GOP guys threw in the towel. But the real work for it was done as part of Republican opposition research. And more and more of that dossier has been confirmed, something you wouldn’t know from reading Right Wing op-eds. But the take on it is always played as the “paid-for-by-Hillary” dossier, and that take should have been firmly debunked from the beginning. If you don’t stamp out these nonsensical statements from the Right Wing, they’ll act as though they’ve been “proven”. And in the case of women’s rights, this is literally going to be a matter of life and death.