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"Half US Abortions are Repeats for Women" states the headline on a major, reputable network news site (MSNBC). Is it just me, but in our super-charged climate, does that read as a subtle judgement, not a headline?
The article goes on to say:
About half of all U.S. women who had abortions in 2002 had undergone at least one previous abortion, according to a study released Tuesday.
Women who had repeat abortions tended to be over age 30 and to have more children, and most were using contraception at the time, the report from the nonprofit Alan Guttmacher Institute found....Most of the women seeking abortions were poor or low-income, and 60 percent had at least one child already.
The study also found that one in three U.S. women have given birth to a baby they had not planned for, and one in 10 have had more than one unintended birth.
In her blog, Suzanne Reisman calls for "Improvement in Media Representation," so how about this as a headline for the story: "We Need to do a Better Job Helping All Women Better Prevent Unwanted Pregnancies," which is from the pull-quote lower in the piece.
Impossible, right? That's a totally pro-choice statement, not an objective headline. But to my eye, so is the headline MSNBC chose to use. And it's the same wording used by the pro-life Lifesite, which must've jumped for joy at the headline used by MSNBC, Scientific American, and others.
Ironically, the study was conducted by a pro-choice institute, which I assume interprets the findings in a different light than those who read the MSNBC headline might. The MSNBC headline allows those who do not support abortion rights to rely on arguments such as "poor women use abortion as birth control, so let's outlaw abortions," or "promiscuous women have abortions" and read no further.
