Fox News' Dubious Attempt To Help Rand Paul Reframe The Abortion Debate

Baier

Fox News' Special Report helped GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) reframe the reproductive choice debate by misleadingly hyping a poll that found that a majority of Americans support a legal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy are extremely rare and studies show a majority of Americans continue to support access to abortions in cases of rape, incest, and various other health care reasons.

According to Politico, on April 8, Sen. Paul “refused to tell The Associated Press whether he would support exceptions for abortions in instances of rape or incest or if the birth of a child would risk the mother's life.” Later that day, Paul told journalists in New Hampshire, “Why don't we ask the DNC” whether it is “OK to kill a 7-pound baby in the uterus.”

Paul's comment was lauded by right-wing media, and on the April 16 edition of Fox News' Special Report host Bret Baier and correspondent Shannon Bream claimed his statement put Democrats on the “defensive” over “views on abortion most Americans find extreme.” During the segment, Bream highlighted a Quinnipiac poll showing “a majority of Americans support legislation that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy,” to paint Democrats as extreme. Later in the show, panelists A.B. Stoddard, Charles Krauthammer, and Steve Hayes applauded Paul for “flipping the script” and exposing Democrats' “extremism” on reproductive choice. Hayes called him “absolutely brilliant” saying he “reframed the issue entirely,” and Charles Krauthammer praised Paul's move saying banning abortion is “the right thing to do, and it's a winning issue.”

Fox's praise for Paul's misleading characterization of the reproductive choice debate is unsurprising given the network's history of helping the GOP rebrand itself - as Bloomberg Politics' David Weigel pointed out, Paul's attempt to flip the script was “exactly what the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List PAC ha[s] been advising Republicans to do since 2012.”

But the Quinnipiac polling cited by Fox actually shows that a majority of Americans still support exceptions to limits on abortions after 20 weeks, allowing women the right to choose in cases of rape and incest. And according to Gallup, a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in cases when a woman's life is in endangered, and the child would be born with a life-threatening illness.

Gallup

And studies show abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy are extremely rare, making up only 1 percent of all abortions, while the vast majority occur during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

Guttmacher

Special Report also ignored the many medical and other reasons women need access to abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), many serious health conditions for the mother and fetus are only detected in the 20th week of pregnancy. And financial hardship can force many women to delay procedures, with seven in ten women indicating they “would have preferred to have their abortion earlier,” but “experience delays because they need time to raise the money,” according to the Guttmacher Institute.

While Fox praised Paul and the GOP's attempt shift the reproductive choice debate, they ignored Paul's poor record on women's health, failing to note his "100% pro-life" record and support for "personhood" legislation that would infringe on women's access to health care services by defining life as beginning at the moment of conception.