MSNBC's Irin Carmon Blasts Bipartisan Louisiana Abortion Law

June 12th, 2014 5:15 PM

MSNBC’s Irin Carmon – a 2013 New York Abortion Access Fund “Champion of Choice” honoree – is at it again, savaging new legislation in Louisiana to regulate the state’s abortion clinics. The new law will hurl the Pelican State back to a “pre-Roe v. Wade condition,” Carmon quoted Amy Irvin of the New Orleans Abortion Fund in the second paragraph of her one-sided June 12 msnbc.com article titled, “Jindal signs bill that may close Louisiana abortion clinics.”

Carmon failed to turn to even a solitary token pro-life activist or legislator in favor of the new law, which is curious given the fact that backing for it was overwhelming and bipartisan. For example, the Louisiana State Senate passed this law by a vote of 34-3, with a strong majority of Democrats supporting it. In fact, the legislation’s co-sponsor, Katrina Jackson, is a Democrat.

To put it in the simplest terms, support for the law was overwhelming, bipartisan, and led by a woman. One might think this would indicate that the bill has some value; it’s ‘restrictions’ are hardly oppressive, unless you consider admitting privileges for abortion doctors – in the event something terrible goes wrong and a patient must be admitted to a local hospital facility – and 24-hour waiting periods – to allow patients to fully consider their options and have a final chance to back out of the procedure away from the setting of a clinic – are unfair burdens on women. 

Carmon returned later in her article to abortion activist Irvin, who groused that the law:

really puts women in an unsafe situation. Without a clinic in their community, they’re going to travel additional distance, pay additional cost, and push back the time frame of their procedure.

Evidently the price of abortion is too low for some, including Carmon; the death of an innocent is not enough, but it has to be cheap too, in their minds. Who knew adding an extra hour or two to a drive would have such catastrophic impacts on the ability to obtain an abortion?

Carmon is ardently dedicated to abortion-rights absolutism and that colors her journalism. MSNBC should be upfront and honest about that, and readers should take her activism with more than a few grains of salt.