Anti-abortion activists are upset about proposed health care reform proposals, so of course the Journal newsroom treats it as very, very big news. Because, as I noted earlier this week, when angry (and overwhelmingly white) conservatives get politically angry, it's news.

Liberals? Not so much.

From the Journal:

Abortion Is New Front in Health Battle

See how definitive that is? It's not that a relatively small number of abortion foes want to make the issue the new health battle “front.” They've done it. (Voilà!) How do we know? The Journal just announced it as fact. And note in its coverage the Journal, incredibly, includes an image of radical, anti-abortion lunatic Randall Terry as being a main player in this health care push. Inside the Journal newsroom, Terry is, once again, an important policy player.

The Journal lede:

Anti-abortion groups are gearing up for a battle in the fall over health-care legislation, another headache for Democrats who already face concerns about the measure's cost and reach.

Most versions of the Democratic health plan would create subsidies for lower-income people to buy private health insurance. If that insurance includes coverage for abortion, as many existing private plans do, it effectively means federal taxpayers are subsidizing abortion, critics of the legislation argue.

The right-wing spin that “critics” want to emphasize is that the government is, basically, going to be paying for, if not providing, abortions. That it's going to pay poor woman to terminate their babies. (Sort of like it's going to be in the business of selectively killing old people, via “death panels.”) Indeed, the reform simply proves, “just how far Democrats are willing to go to force taxpayers to fund abortion,” as Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) tells the Journal.

But even by the Journal's own reporting, that premise represents a gigantic stretch. Instead, under the proposed reforms, the government would be in the business of helping poor people get health care. And what kind of care they need would be up to them, and their doctors, to decide.

Not matter, that's the spin “critics” on the far-right are pushing, and so that's the spin the Journal focuses on. And that's the spin the Journal dutifully announces has been elevated to the next “front.”