crisis pregnancy centers

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Podcast: Is 'post-truth America' a right-wing or a left-wing term? Please discuss

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Podcast: Is 'post-truth America' a right-wing or a left-wing term? Please discuss

Please ponder this pair of true or false questions.

When religious, cultural and political liberals complained about Donald Trump promoting his own “alternative facts” for use in the mainstream press, did they have a valid point? Was it fair game for them to apply the academic term “post-truth” in this case?

When religious, cultural and political conservatives complained about Democrats and their Big Tech-Big Media allies burying coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, funders of Antifa, origin debates about COVID-19 and Jane’s Revenge attacks on churches and crisis-pregnancy centers, did they have a valid point? Was it fair game for them to apply the academic term “post-truth” in this case?

I would argue that the correct answer is “yes,” in both cases.

Debates about the meaning of the term “post-truth” were at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). There was a logical reason for that, since Clemente Lisi and I were speakers in a March 10-11 conference in Washington, D.C., with this title: “Journalism in a Post-Truth World.” The conference was sponsored by Franciscan University of Steubenville and the Eternal Word Television Network.

The Franciscan University press release afterwards noted that the participants included journalists from the “National Catholic Register, The Washington Post, OSV News, Fox News, CNN, RealClearPolitics, The Catholic Herald, The Spectator, Washington Examiner, National Review, The Daily Signal, Catholic News Agency, The Daily Caller, and GetReligion.” Well, I had requested that I be identified as a columnist with the Universal press syndicate, but I wear several hats.

That’s a list that clearly leans to newsrooms on the cultural right, but with some solid mainstream voices as well. For example, I was on a panel about Catholic news coverage with the (in my eyes) legendary religion-beat pro Ann Rodgers, best known for several decades with the Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Also, click here for a Lisi post at Religion Unplugged about his presentation.

It’s safe to say that someone was there from the National Catholic Reporter, because of this headline in that progressive Catholic publication: “EWTN-sponsored conference on journalism embraces right-wing 'post-truth' narrative.”


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The Associated Press turns crisis pregnancy centers into 'anti-abortion' sites and that's that

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The Associated Press turns crisis pregnancy centers into 'anti-abortion' sites and that's that

There comes a time when some journalists feel they must dissent from the prevailing winds of their occupation, and I’ve finally reached that point.

My concern comes from a piece in the National Catholic Register on how new terms describing abortion handed down by the Associated Press –- the standard bearer for American journalism –- have made this new normal something I can no longer follow.

The Associated Press or AP, for those of you not employed by news organizations, sets the correct titles and grammar for work in American journalism. Everyone follows whatever AP decides something should be called, using the evolving standards of the Associated Press Stylebook.

Until now. Typically, AP leaders have tried to avoid taking sides in the abortion and gender debates. However, their most recent rules makes it quite impossible for some journalists — including myself — to cover this complicated topic the way AP insists that we cover it.

In the past, for example, journalists argued about calling activists on one side “anti-abortion,” as opposed to “pro-life,” while those on the other side were given a label they welcomed, as in “pro-choice.” That second label evolved into “pro-abortion rights.” We will come back to that.

Now this. From the Register:

The Associated Press (AP) issued new guidelines advising reporters not to use the terms “crisis pregnancy center” or “pregnancy resource center” but to instead refer to centers that offer pro-life counseling and support as “anti-abortion centers.”

Reporters should “avoid potentially misleading terms such as pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers,” because “these terms don’t convey that the centers’ general aim is to prevent abortions,” according to the AP’s Abortion Topical Guide.

The changes were made last November but are just getting publicized now.  And these centers –- PRCs --aren’t just there to prevent abortions, which anyone who walks into one soon discovers.


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Of course the fall of Roe was 2022's top religion-beat story (including those church attacks)

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Of course the fall of Roe was 2022's top religion-beat story (including those church attacks)

In the years before Roe v. Wade, one of America's largest Christian flocks struggled to find a way to condemn abortion, while also opposing bans on abortion.

A 1971 resolution said: "Some advocate that there be no abortion legislation, thus making the decision a purely private matter between a woman and her doctor" while others "advocate no legal abortion," permitting it "only if the life of the mother is threatened." Thus, it backed legislation allowing "abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

After the 1973 Roe decision, the same body stressed the "limited role of government" in abortion questions, while supporting a "full range of medical services and personal counseling" for expectant mothers.

That was the Southern Baptist Convention -- before its conservative wing gained control, creating a powerful cultural force against abortion rights.

Churches were always active in abortion debates, with some embracing centuries of doctrine on the sanctity of human life, while overs became strategic abortion-rights supporters. Thus, journalists in the Religion News Association named the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as the year's top American religion-news story. Now churches -- left and right face -- face the challenge of proclaiming certainties while many states seek compromise.

Stressing politics, the RNA stated: "The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states' constitutions."

This poll avoided other religion-news elements of this story, such as acts of violence against churches -- especially Catholic parishes -- and crisis pregnancy centers, ranging from vandalism to arson, from the interruption of sacred rites to the destruction of sacred art. Protestors marched at the homes of SCOTUS justices and police arrested an armed man who threatened to invade the house of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

This year, the RNA added an international list, selecting Russia's war against Ukraine as the top story, in part because of bitter tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, backed by the United States and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey.


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Journalism question for these times: When are death threats 'real' death threats?

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Journalism question for these times: When are death threats 'real' death threats?

Here is a journalism question for you: When is a death threat an actual “death threat”?

Let me state that another way: When do words that clearly communicate a death threat represent a “real” or legitimate death threat in the eyes of journalists, local police and (wait for it) the Department of Justice?

We can add another question I received via email from a religion-beat veteran: In what sense is a death threat “pro-choice”?

Yes, once again we are looking at a story that is linked to abortion, a topic that mixes politics, religion, law and science. In this case the event that made news (barely) was the vandalism of yet another Catholic church in a blue zip code. Here is the entire report from a local CBS newsroom and note the headline, which inspired that email question: “Catholic Church in Lansing vandalized with pro-choice graffiti.”

(CBS DETROIT) - The Diocese of Lansing released video footage of three people vandalizing the Church of the Resurrection with spray-painted pro-choice graffiti.

The incident happened on Saturday, Oct. 8, between 11:52 p.m. and 11:56 p.m. Video footage shows the three suspects walking up to the church from the area of Jerome and Custer, spay-painting the church, and then leaving the area.

The suspects spray-painted on the doors, signage, and sidewalk of the church, and the messages included: "Restore Roe" and "Is overturning Roe worth your life or democracy?"

Police are reviewing the security footage and searching for the suspects. According to the Diocese of Lansing, the graffiti has been power-washed.

If anyone has any information about this crime, they are urged to contact the Lansing Police Department at 517-483-4600.

The key language: “Is overturning Roe worth your life or democracy?" What are the logical implications of the words “worth your life”?

I realize that some anti-abortion demonstrators use chants claiming (thinking “mortal sin” consequences) that those taking part in abortions are risking their souls. Is that the same thing as saying that the U.S. Supreme Court voting to overturn Roe v. Wade is, addressing Catholic worshippers, “worth your life”?


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Podcast: Concerning the right-wing rosary attack -- was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?

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Podcast: Concerning the right-wing rosary attack -- was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?

No doubt about it. The early favorite for the wild headline of 2022 has to be “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol” atop that viral feature from The Atlantic. And that now-deleted graphic with the rosary made of bullet holes? That will show up in media-bias features for years (maybe decades) to come.

Yes, I know that the editors tried to tone that down with a replacement headline — but it’s the original screamer that perfectly captured the article’s thesis. Oh, and the editors updated a mistake in the second line of the original headline with that new sub-headline: “Why are sacramental beads suddenly showing up next to AR-15s online?”

Attention Atlantic editors: Here is a quick guide to the seven Roman Catholic sacraments. Correction, please.

So here was the first question in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). It’s a question your GetReligionistas have been asking more often in the past decade (even before Orange Man Bad): What WAS this thing? A news feature? A piece of blunt analysis? An opinion screed? And here’s the question I saw several people ask: Did the Atlantic editors set out to publish an anti-Catholic classic?

Here’s my hot take: I think the Atlantic editors thought they were publishing a PRO-Catholic piece that set out to defend GOOD Catholics who want to change centuries of church teachings from the BAD Catholics who want to defend those teachings, especially orthodox doctrines on marriage, sexuality, abortion, etc.

Why do I think that? Here is the crucial part of the article, from my point of view, starting with the overture:

Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or “rad trad”) Catholics. On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.

Their social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, Deus Vult (“God wills it”) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become Church Militants.


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Angry about Roe, many journalists focus on crisis pregnancy centers as villains behind it all

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Angry about Roe, many journalists focus on crisis pregnancy centers as villains behind it all

Before the overturning of Roe v. Wade a little more than a week ago, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) were considered by mainstream media to be the dregs of the pro-life movement, one of the last stories that anyone wanted to cover.

Now that abortion access is heading toward the deep-blue coastal regions with a few blue islands in the middle, a villain must be found. And voilà; the once despised CPCs are to blame for it all. Now, CPCs are worse than a non-story.

Apparently these places are pretty effective, judging from the editorial hate being poured down on them. They’re the bricks and mortar of the pro-life movement. Instead of reporting about how these CPCs — and the churches that tend to support them — have been defaced, set on fire or otherwise attacked, we have hit pieces like this Associated Press article about a “so-called” crisis pregnancy center in Charleston, WV.

The piece is so front-loaded with trash quotes from its opponents — with no rejoinder allowed from leaders or volunteers at the CPC itself — that you almost miss the story about the woman who visited the center back in 2014 planning to abort her child. She was (very reluctantly) dissuaded from doing so and now is “very happily” raising her 7-year-old son.

So, what’s the moral of this story? That this particular mother should have decided that this kid should be dead? The two reporters who did this disaster of a story don't want to go there.

Considering the invective tossed at these CPCs by places like Planned Parenthood, why aren’t reporters treating this more like a business story?

Like, the CPCs have outwitted the abortion clinics when it comes to figuring out what many pregnant women really want and it’s clear the abortion facilities have suffered financial losses as a result. How about asking people at the latter hard questions about the clients they’ve lost to the CPCs and whose bad marketing decision that was?

Hint: It might have to do with the free ultrasounds offered by the CPCs. Offering this service was a trend that began a decade or more ago and it really cried out for coverage.


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'Forced' to bear twins: Washington Post offers morality tale about reluctant teen mom in Texas

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'Forced' to bear twins: Washington Post offers morality tale about reluctant teen mom in Texas

When I saw the headline to the Washington Post story: “This Texas teen wanted an abortion. Now she has twins,” I thought, “Here we go again.“

We were going to read about Texas, the state that had the nerve to limit abortions to around the sixth week of pregnancy and the many women who are now being forced to bear children.

There’s so many problems with this story, it’s hard to know where to start. I’ll try.

The narrative begins with a scene from the life of Brooke Alexander, who is trying to nurse two three-month-old twins in a run-down apartment with blankets as curtains. We learn quickly that she’s living in the home of her boyfriend after her heartless mother has kicked her out. This is the same mother who encouraged her to continue with the pregnancy in the first place.

Brooke found out she was pregnant late on the night of Aug. 29, two days before the Texas Heartbeat Act banned abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy. It was the most restrictive abortion law to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

For many Texans who have needed abortions since September, the law has been a major inconvenience, forcing them to drive hundreds of miles — and pay hundreds of dollars — for a legal procedure they once could have had at home. But not everyone has been able to leave the state. Some people couldn’t take time away from work or afford gas, while others, faced with a long journey, decided to stay pregnant.

Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term. Texas offers a glimpse of what much of the country would face if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer. …

Did the couple use birth control? Did they care? It appears that the reporter never asked many basic questions. We do know that Brooke’s dad has been missing for much of her life; she talks about feeling that she is unattractive and all of a sudden here’s this guy paying attention to her.

Here we have two teens, both 17, who have unprotected sex apparently on the first or second date. She ignores obvious signs (two missed periods) until it’s too late; the Heartbeat Law is going into effect.

Sometimes Brooke imagined her life if she hadn’t gotten pregnant, if Texas hadn’t banned abortion just days after she decided that she wanted one. She would have been in school, rushing from class to her shift at Texas Roadhouse, eyes on a real estate license that would finally get her out of Corpus Christi. She’d pictured an apartment in Austin and enough money for a trip to Hawaii, where she’d swim with dolphins in water so clear she could see her toes.

Ah, the freedom that abortion brings. And the villains in this story? We will get there in a moment.


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How is African-American press handling news about protests, COVID-19 and churches?

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Amanda Foreman, The Wall Street Journal’s history columnist, had a timely piece last weekend about “Pioneers of America’s Black Press” (behind pay wall).

The Religion Guy is under the impression that the Mainstream Media have given little attention to how African-American newspapers are treating the coronavirus crisis, with its disproportionate impact on their communities, alongside the nationwide racial reckoning on police conduct and demonstrations blighted by rioters who have harmed black neighborhoods and livelihoods.

For GetReligion purposes, it’s of particular interest whether, how, and how much they cover the news of church bodies on these and other matters. Though black Americans on average are more devout than whites, the African-American press is presumably even more strapped on staffing and advertising than the general press is in these days. Nevertheless, here’s one COVID-19 church roundup from The Crisis, official magazine of the NAACP.

The white-majority MSM often ignore the news of black religion. Here are examples from the two largest denominations (actually the largest African-American organizations of any type).

How many reported that the year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide, the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., expressed respect for individual conscience but cited the Bible (specifically Genesis 2:18-25) in stating that the denomination’s endorsed military chaplains “are not to participate in any activity that implies or condones same sex marriage or same sex union”?

Or this: The Church of God in Christ is allied with a national chain of crisis pregnancy centers in a Family Life Campaign aimed at “making abortion unthinkable and unavailable in America.” Presiding Bishop Charles Blake said the practice is as much a form of violence the church must fight as “terrorism, racial tension in America, and escalating crime.”

Foreman’s article noted that “the longest-running African-American periodical” is not a general-interest newspaper but The Christian Recorder, the Nashville-based official voice of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, dating from 1848. That’s appropriate status since the A.M.E. itself is the oldest black denomination, with roots in a Philadelphia congregation founded by Richard Allen in 1794.


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New Yorker piece on crisis pregnancy centers incites rather than informs

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For some time now, I’ve been asking if it’s possible for The New Yorker to deliver a fair assessment of any conservative Christian group or person, which is why I was interested in a recent piece on crisis pregnancy clinics.

CPCs, as they are also called, aren’t always Christian although they tend to be.

They are 100 percent founded and run by the devout, who consider it a ministry to run them. These places make no money, really, and are sued, attacked, lied about or mischaracterized (as what happened in this outrageously biased NPR story) all the time.

The New Yorker’s religion reporter, Eliza Griswold, was sent on several visits to center in Terre Haute, Indiana. CPCs get their motives questioned in ways that Planned Parenthood clinics never are, so I was interested in how Griswold would approach the topic.  

On the door of a white R.V. that serves as the Wabash Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center’s mobile unit are the stencilled words “No Cash, No Narcotics.” The center, in Terre Haute, Indiana, is one of more than twenty-five hundred such C.P.C.s in the U.S.—Christian organizations that provide services including free pregnancy testing, low-cost S.T.D. testing, parenting classes, and ultrasounds. Sharon Carey, the executive director of the Wabash Valley center, acquired the van in January, 2018, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, after finding a company that retrofits secondhand vehicles with medical equipment. That May, Carey began to dispatch the van to rural towns whose residents often cannot afford the gas needed to drive to the C.P.C. or to a hospital.

The subhed for this story: “As rural health care flounders, crisis pregnancy centers are gaining ground,” so it’s clear where this article is headed.


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