I read a NYT article yesterday titled 'Kansas Tries to Stamp Out Abortion'. You can read it here. This article is of interest to me in two ways. First, it is written in an inflammatory manner, and second, it is simply scientifically, socially and medically inaccurate.
The abortion article uses terms like 'hard-line conservatives'. Such terms are evocative and labeling without being explanatory. Anyone can use value-laden terms to attack a person or idea and evoke a response without actually making a point. In similar manner it contrasts the constitutional upholding of a right to abortion below 24 weeks with 'tireless efforts of anti-abortion armies'. The image evoked again has nothing to do with the law that is the subject of the article. The very title of the article, that Kansas is trying to 'stamp out' abortion, is labeling.
I won a debating championship arguing points with which I did not agree. Debate, argument in the formal sense, does not include invective and ridicule. Any attorney presenting language and arguments like this article would be silenced in court, their briefs rejected or ignored. And yet one of the 'papers of record' in the US uses misleading, evocative, emotional terms in presenting news. Admitting that the item is an editorial it is still lousy writing and worse argument.
Contrast the tone with a 1962 NYT article on John Glenn. It is not a pure contrast. This is an article, not an editorial, and about something almost everyone admired, space flight. Nonetheless, the article reports the 100,000 who watched the launch, the pure joy of the astronaut, the dangers faced, the 10 prior failed launch attempts. There is no contrasting view, no 'journalistic balance' which requires every triumph to be contrasted with tragedy, every choice to be opposed, every hero to have feet of clay. The article does not present the 10 prior launch failures as 'the repeated failures of military planners', or the program as 'wasteful of public money' or that 'controversy has surrounded the space program since it was enacted by President Eisenhower, a Republican'.
Phrases of this sort are routine today. The counterpoint of 'good reportage' makes everything adulterated. It is as if every parent's pride in their child had to be tempered with a description of their failures, errors and agonies. 'News' is no longer that. It is one long social commentary, much of it sour. Editorials are no longer points of view, they are meant to inflame, to annoy, to stir up strong emotional reactions. And this is regardless of political stripe. One's group's meat is the other's poison.
This kind of writing is a reflection of a loss of public ethos, of shared values which would allow a nation to be happy, proud, sad, or angry, together. In a nation of 200 million, or 300 million, there will always be those who disagree with consensus. That does not mean their opinions are newsworthy. The values of small groups drive not only the media but political agendas as well.
And this brings me to the topic of abortion, one that I have written on only three times. I try to stay away from it, as it generates great heat and little light. This article, however, is so misleading I must comment. It is misleading medically and socially.
For the curious, This is the full text of the law. The NYT complains that medical terminology is not even used. They are right. The term for the abortion described is usually a dilatation and evacuation, or D and E. That term, however, may apply to an abortion with or without dismemberment. The law is not being inflammatory; it is the NYT that misleads, or is ignorant.
There can be no question that any law restricting abortion procedures or gestational age is an attempt to 'limit abortion'. Is that wrong, or in itself unconstitutional, as suggested by the NYT? Not at all. It is up to states and even municipalities to determine how civil rights are exercised. Speech is free and unlimited, but parades require permits. The KKK is legal, but may not infringe upon the rights of others.
Broad majorities support abortion being legal, but broad majorities also support it being limited in procedure or gestational age. Kansas has been willing to make that law rather than custom. The procedure outlawed does not account for 'less than 10% of abortions' as stated by the NYT. That suggests it is 9% of abortions. D and E accounts for less than 2% of abortions, a much different situation.
Also ignored by the NYT is the complication rate of D and E. For abortion above 16 weeks the only options are D and E or induction of labor. Induction is long and messy, and requires hospitalization. 20% or more of such inductions end with a D and C to remove placental tissue. D and E has a lower overall complication rate, and is quick and may be done in an outpatient facility. The complications of D and E, however, are horrific. Uterine perforation is the most serious, with extraction of maternal bowel and severe hemorrhage. Almost every week in my residency brought what we called D and E disasters, patients sent emergently to our ER in MAST pants (that's Military Anti-Shock Trousers, a pressure device to maintain BP in patients with severe blood loss). Infection is also much more common. The total complication rate of D and E is lower, but they are much more severe.
D and E is emotionally repugnant as well. I witnessed many as a resident. It is a technique worth knowing, since it is applicable to medically indicated termination and also extraction of retained placental tissue. But it is revolting. The law is not inflammatory in its language; it is accurate. Large majorities desire such procedures to be limited. The Kansas law is not extremist; it is popular.
Writing inflammatory and misleading articles and editorials is not what 'news' is. These articles are polemic, political positions masquerading as news. Writing about medical procedures from a social point of view puts the NYT in the position of every ordinary citizen- having an opinion based on no facts. How sad for our country that ignorance and opinion are conflated into news.
Ted
The abortion article uses terms like 'hard-line conservatives'. Such terms are evocative and labeling without being explanatory. Anyone can use value-laden terms to attack a person or idea and evoke a response without actually making a point. In similar manner it contrasts the constitutional upholding of a right to abortion below 24 weeks with 'tireless efforts of anti-abortion armies'. The image evoked again has nothing to do with the law that is the subject of the article. The very title of the article, that Kansas is trying to 'stamp out' abortion, is labeling.
I won a debating championship arguing points with which I did not agree. Debate, argument in the formal sense, does not include invective and ridicule. Any attorney presenting language and arguments like this article would be silenced in court, their briefs rejected or ignored. And yet one of the 'papers of record' in the US uses misleading, evocative, emotional terms in presenting news. Admitting that the item is an editorial it is still lousy writing and worse argument.
Contrast the tone with a 1962 NYT article on John Glenn. It is not a pure contrast. This is an article, not an editorial, and about something almost everyone admired, space flight. Nonetheless, the article reports the 100,000 who watched the launch, the pure joy of the astronaut, the dangers faced, the 10 prior failed launch attempts. There is no contrasting view, no 'journalistic balance' which requires every triumph to be contrasted with tragedy, every choice to be opposed, every hero to have feet of clay. The article does not present the 10 prior launch failures as 'the repeated failures of military planners', or the program as 'wasteful of public money' or that 'controversy has surrounded the space program since it was enacted by President Eisenhower, a Republican'.
Phrases of this sort are routine today. The counterpoint of 'good reportage' makes everything adulterated. It is as if every parent's pride in their child had to be tempered with a description of their failures, errors and agonies. 'News' is no longer that. It is one long social commentary, much of it sour. Editorials are no longer points of view, they are meant to inflame, to annoy, to stir up strong emotional reactions. And this is regardless of political stripe. One's group's meat is the other's poison.
This kind of writing is a reflection of a loss of public ethos, of shared values which would allow a nation to be happy, proud, sad, or angry, together. In a nation of 200 million, or 300 million, there will always be those who disagree with consensus. That does not mean their opinions are newsworthy. The values of small groups drive not only the media but political agendas as well.
And this brings me to the topic of abortion, one that I have written on only three times. I try to stay away from it, as it generates great heat and little light. This article, however, is so misleading I must comment. It is misleading medically and socially.
For the curious, This is the full text of the law. The NYT complains that medical terminology is not even used. They are right. The term for the abortion described is usually a dilatation and evacuation, or D and E. That term, however, may apply to an abortion with or without dismemberment. The law is not being inflammatory; it is the NYT that misleads, or is ignorant.
There can be no question that any law restricting abortion procedures or gestational age is an attempt to 'limit abortion'. Is that wrong, or in itself unconstitutional, as suggested by the NYT? Not at all. It is up to states and even municipalities to determine how civil rights are exercised. Speech is free and unlimited, but parades require permits. The KKK is legal, but may not infringe upon the rights of others.
Broad majorities support abortion being legal, but broad majorities also support it being limited in procedure or gestational age. Kansas has been willing to make that law rather than custom. The procedure outlawed does not account for 'less than 10% of abortions' as stated by the NYT. That suggests it is 9% of abortions. D and E accounts for less than 2% of abortions, a much different situation.
Also ignored by the NYT is the complication rate of D and E. For abortion above 16 weeks the only options are D and E or induction of labor. Induction is long and messy, and requires hospitalization. 20% or more of such inductions end with a D and C to remove placental tissue. D and E has a lower overall complication rate, and is quick and may be done in an outpatient facility. The complications of D and E, however, are horrific. Uterine perforation is the most serious, with extraction of maternal bowel and severe hemorrhage. Almost every week in my residency brought what we called D and E disasters, patients sent emergently to our ER in MAST pants (that's Military Anti-Shock Trousers, a pressure device to maintain BP in patients with severe blood loss). Infection is also much more common. The total complication rate of D and E is lower, but they are much more severe.
D and E is emotionally repugnant as well. I witnessed many as a resident. It is a technique worth knowing, since it is applicable to medically indicated termination and also extraction of retained placental tissue. But it is revolting. The law is not inflammatory in its language; it is accurate. Large majorities desire such procedures to be limited. The Kansas law is not extremist; it is popular.
Writing inflammatory and misleading articles and editorials is not what 'news' is. These articles are polemic, political positions masquerading as news. Writing about medical procedures from a social point of view puts the NYT in the position of every ordinary citizen- having an opinion based on no facts. How sad for our country that ignorance and opinion are conflated into news.
Ted
Excellent; and true.
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