Major Network Reportedly Gives 'March for Life' the Cold Shoulder, Hypes Pro-Abortion March Instead
The March for Life reportedly drew about 100,000 people this year. That’s no small feat, even if it’s not the most that the march has ever seen — 500,000 in 2013 was one recent high. However, the 46th iteration of the largest pro-life protest in America is probably something worth paying attention to.
Unless, of course, you’re the broadcast media.
According to LifeNews, morning shows on the three major networks were much more interested in the pro-abortion Women’s March, a movement that’s splintering over serious allegations of anti-Semitism within its leadership.
“ABC, NBC and CBS’s morning news shows all ignored the 46th annual March for Life happening today in Washington D.C., the largest pro-life gathering in the nation where an estimated 100,000 people are expected to show up to protest the legalization of abortion,” LifeNews reported Friday. “Even as President Trump is expected to address the crowd via video for the second year in a row, the liberal networks still couldn’t find time to report on the march.”
However, as LifeNews pointed out, “CBS gave a whole segment to the feminist, anti-Semitic ‘Women’s March’ scheduled for Saturday but didn’t even give a passing mention to the March for Life.”
That, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is the march that’s been splintering thanks to several exposés about anti-Semitic remarks made by some of its leaders and their links to Louis Farrakhan, America’s most visible spewer of Jew-hatred.
The other networks, meanwhile, had more important things to cover.
“ABC and NBC had plenty of time to give to fluff stories Friday morning, from Meghan Markle’s fashion, to ‘nomophobia,’ which is an addiction to one’s phone,” LifeNews noted.
And when media outlets did give the March for Life coverage, it was typically dismissive.
The Washington Post gave over part of its article on the march — replete with a picture of stony-faced, minatory-looking young people right below the headline — to questioning the scientific bona fides of the pro-life movement, given that the theme of this year’s march was “Unique from Day One: Pro-Life is Pro-Science.”
“Science isn’t really designed to answer questions about the exact beginning of life or the moral assignations of these sorts of things,” said Sarah Horvath, “a doctor who has performed abortions and works as a family planning policy and advocacy fellow for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”
“Science tells us that abortion is safe,” she told The Post. “Science tells us that abortion is health care. Science tells us that abortion care can be lifesaving.”
Horvath was brought on to dispute a paper by the Charlotte Lozier Institute arguing that because a zygote — the result of an egg cell being fertilized by a sperm cell — “directs its own development” and will, under the right circumstances, eventually become a child, zygotes “are indeed living individuals of the human species.”
“I think that’s a gross exaggeration of an incredibly complex topic,” Horvath said. “There are many fertilized eggs that never implant, that implant in the wrong place … that become miscarriages, that in fact can become a type of cancer.”
Yes, cancer. This isn’t a scare tactic at all.
It’s interesting how many other movements are given uncritical coverage in the pages of The Post, but on this one, the news outlet felt the need to consult a doctor who says that “(s)cience tells us that abortion is health care.”
Say what you will about the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” folks, at least they were covering actual news in their own special way. The other story that seemed to catch the fancy of the media from the March for Life involved conservative commentator Ben Shapiro losing a sponsor because he did an ad read during his speech (the address was intended to be used as an episode of his podcast). There’s a crucial news flash from the District. Further bulletins as events warrant.
But then, disappointment over the lack of coverage for the March for Life is as much of an annual event as the March for Life is. The media just don’t think that the pro-life movement is worth covering, no matter how many people turn up in Washington.
Meanwhile, the disintegrating Women’s March is arguably getting more play even as local marches are being canceled.
It’s business as usual in the business of shaping opinion.
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