The Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer

It’s a glorious day when abortion activists end up doing our job for us. Most of them take for granted the intellectual justifications for the pro-life movement, because, as we know, the most profound pro-choice philosophies come from bumper stickers and pink hats.

Such was the case in Media Matters’s latest two pro-abortion pieces–the first criticizing pro-life advocates for saying abortion facilities are non-essential during COVID-19, and the second, attempting to take down the connection between abortion and racism.

In both pieces, the author, Julie Tulbert, primarily uses the great literary technique of copy and paste, coupled with the winning strategy of assuming no one is going to challenge her.

For example, one article begins by criticizing conservatives who “tether abortion and racism” claiming that no such connection exists. The author immediately proceeds to affirm “the real history of medical racism, specifically in reproductive health like the coerced sterilization of people of color throughout the 20th century.” Evidently, encouraging the abortion industry to lie to and mislead women of color into sterilizing themselves is much more honorable. 

The author then tries to refute any modern continuation of this connection, saying “the anti-abortion movement seldom ‘frames white women — who have the most abortions in the country — as having committed genocide.”  Of course, what’s ignored is the extreme disproportion in the percentage of Black women who’ve had abortions, which has defined the legacy of abortion from the beginning. Black women make up 13% of the population, yet are sold about 36% of total abortions. 

Both articles were kind enough to put Students for Life’s president Kristan Hawkins in the spotlight. One piece mentioned her Twitter reply to Planned Parenthood’s president Alexis McGill Johnson’s comment on attacks on bodily autonomy, where Hawkins asked if dismembering and selling baby body parts would count as such attacks. The second flagged as misinformation Hawkins’ statement on the irony of promoting ending life in abortion during the life-ending virus of COVID-19.

You got to give her this — she honestly includes pro-life arguments. But there’s just nothing convincing here to persuade the audience over to her side. In fact, if you didn’t get the sense already that the author was pro-choice from the opening paragraph or the website’s bias, you’d think she was offering a tidy list of resources for pro-life activists. How thoughtful!

It’s almost more of a compliment to assume that’s what Tulbert was going for. How many people can read about dismembering baby body parts without even remotely questioning their views? Especially when Planned Parenthood staffers admitted it themselves!

This is how we know the logic in standing for life — that there’s really no argument on their side. And now that we’ve got the free ad space, Media Matters readers will see this every time they find these articles on their site.