WaPo Reviews Abortion Battle in 2009 as All Tiller and Stupak -- And No Sotomayor?

January 10th, 2010 1:40 PM

The Washington Post took up the struggles of the abortion lobby in the Sunday newspaper. Reporter Peter Slevin's story was headlined "Abortion rights activists brace for another year of challenges."

Notice the euphemisms, from "challenges" to "abortion rights activists." But Slevin's account had a gaping hole in it: he never acknowledged the "pro-choice" victory in confirming leftist abortion promoter Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, not to mention abortion activists in the lower federal courts.  

Instead, Slevin used the year-in-review piece to focus on the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller. Slevin called him only "the nation's most prominent abortion doctor," not a specialist in the high-priced arena of "terminating" babies in the third trimester of pregnancy.

The Post is certainly not going to call his office an "abortion mill." Instead, it was "a long-standing refuge for women and a site of daily protests that often turned bitter."

Slevin surveyed both sides to evaluate the past year, and abortion advocates are very upset that they are still being opposed. NARAL boss Nancy Keenan railed against "even more mischief and attacks on pro-choice politics."

Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center mysteriously claimed "The Stupak amendment was a wake-up call, and a big surprise to people all over the country who...generally thought that the basic right was in place and basic access was secure."

Slevin also quoted Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and several pro-lifers, like Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. But the words "liberal" and "conservative" were never used by the Post reporter.