SALON

Wednesday, Nov 22, 2006 10:00 PM UTC

Bill O’Reilly’s misinformation campaign

The Fox News host spews more inaccuracies, this time from the Boston Herald's Op-Ed page.

By

Topics: Abortion, Broadsheet, Love and Sex,

Broadsheet editor’s note: Last weekend, the Boston Herald featured an opinion piece by Bill O’Reilly, in which the Fox News host did more spouting off about Kansas abortion law. In the piece, O’Reilly repeated his allegation that Kansas physician George Tiller has been providing late-term, post-viability abortions to depressed women, calling him an “abortionist” and “Tiller the Baby Killer.” He ended his tirade by lamenting, “It is hard to believe that babies have more protections in Paris and Amsterdam than they do in Kansas. But that’s the truth.”

We missed the piece when it ran on Sunday. Fortunately, Jessica Arons, the director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program and a member of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, didn’t miss it, and was kind enough to send us her reaction to O’Reilly’s essay.

I just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s Op-Ed in last weekend’s Boston Herald about abortions in Kansas and I have rarely been so offended in all my life. But not for the reasons O’Reilly hoped. His suggestion that a woman would have, or even want, a post-viability abortion because she is feeling a “bit blue” is both condescending and absurd, as if a pregnant woman just wakes up one day and says, “You know, I don’t feel like having this baby after all.” Women have abortions for all sorts of reasons that are important to them and their loved ones, but no woman has an abortion on a whim.

Moreover, his statements that Kansas allows doctors “to terminate a fetus at any time up until birth” for mental health reasons and that Kansas law is more liberal than France’s are patently false. Kan. Stat. Ann. ‘ 65-6703(a) allows the abortion of a viable fetus only if two physicians (one of whom cannot be legally or financially affiliated with the attending physician) determine that the abortion is necessary to preserve the woman’s life or that the pregnancy “will cause a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman,” which sounds quite similar to his description of the laws in France. The statute includes no mental health exception, vague or otherwise, and O’Reilly cites no actual law to back up his reckless assertions.

O’Reilly’s reference to Dr. Tiller’s patient records also is quite disconcerting. He does not share how he came by these records, though on his television show he mentioned he had an inside source about records that were recently obtained by Kansas attorney general and antiabortion crusader Phill Kline. That a member of the press — especially one so well-known for inflammatory and biased rhetoric — has had an opportunity to see private medical records that are the subject of a state investigation should be of great concern to all Americans who value doctor-patient confidentiality.

Finally, I resent O’Reilly’s continued allusions to secularists who “worship at the altar of abortion.” There are millions of sincere religious people throughout this country who — because of their faith — support legal abortion because they know that when abortion is illegal women needlessly suffer and die. In fact, before abortion was made legal in this country thousands of clergy participated in the Clergy Consultation Service, which gave women referrals for safe but illegal abortions.

It is one thing for O’Reilly to be given free rein by Fox News, but the Herald should be ashamed of itself for publishing this unsubstantiated tripe. His tactics unnecessarily inflame an already divisive debate and add nothing to it but mindless propaganda. And that’s the truth.

More Jessica Arons.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 10 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations