For a news network that is often caricatured as right wing, Fox News Channel peppered a pro-life guest with an awful lot of questions that were skeptical of Iowa's new law that bans abortion at about six weeks pregnancy.
In fact, Fox and Friends Sunday host Abby Huntsman (a veteran of MSNBC) even cited one poll alleging a majority of Americans want most abortions to be legal, and did not mention that other polling has claimed the opposite.
At 7:25 a.m. Eastern, after recalling that Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed the law a few days ago, which bans abortion after a baby's heartbeat can be detected, Huntsman introduced Iowa Republican State Senator Rick Bertrand and immediately brought up a survey suggesting most Americans would oppose such a law:
You know this is one of the most controversial issues that we debate in this country, so, looking at recent polls and survey done on just how the country is feeling about abortion, there's a recent Pew survey that shows that 57 percent of the country supports legal abortion. That's compared to 40 percent who support illegal. So the question off the top is: Is this bill the most -- the strictest bill on abortion -- is this what the American people American people are wanting?
The polling she was referring to was a survey released by the Pew Research Center in June 2017. Not mentioned was that, in May 2017, by contrast, Gallup reported that 54 percent of respondents believe abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances, while 42 percent supported abortion being legal in most or all cases.
For the rest of the interview, the FNC host did not ask a single question that was sympathetic to the effort to protect unborn babies. For her second question, Huntsman recalled that the new law allows exceptions in cases of rape or if the mother's life is in danger, and then posed:
A lot of women, including myself, don't even know that they're pregnant at six weeks along, so help explain what this law would mean for those women who find out, let's say, at eight, nine, 10 weeks, and they realize that there's a health problem with either the child or the mother.
After Bertrand recalled a major motivation in passing the law was to get the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe V. Wade, Huntsman followed up:
So you could say this is for the Supreme Court -- and I believe you that you feel it is -- but what about women who say our lives are on the line? We may not find out till later on that something does need to be done in order for us to stay alive? How do you respond to that?
The FNC host then brought up the pro-abortion groups that will fight against the law as she concluded:
Well, you know, not every group in the state of Iowa is happy about this new bill. You can expect challenges from Planned Parenthood, for example, from the ACLU there in the state of Iowa. Are you guys planned to combat those challenges
