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Abortion

• November 8 -- "Angry Conservatives," Erroneous Names
Carl Hulse's story on Sen. Arlen Specter's controversial abortion statements begins with loaded language: "Angry conservatives flooded Senate phone and fax lines on Friday…." Plus: Who are "The Concerned Women of America"?

• November 5 -- A Specter Looming Over Bush's Sunny Week
The Times takes a step back from the election with broad-based, mostly respectful stories on how values-oriented voters put Bush over the top. But the paper doesn’t miss a chance to stir controversy, fronting a story on Republican Sen. Arlen Specter comments on abortion.

• October 25 -- "Hard-Line," "Strident" Bishops for Bush
Ian Fisher employs some loaded labels to describe the reaction of some Catholic bishops to Kerry's pro-abortion stance.

• October 18 -- Making Ted Kennedy Look Moderate
Editorial writer Adam Cohen lays out the fearsome fruits of a potential second term for Bush: "Abortion might be a crime in most states. Gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex in their homes. States might be free to become mini-theocracies, endorsing Christianity and using tax money to help spread the gospel."

• October 14 -- Bush's "Rock-Hard" Positions vs. Clinton's "Mushy Middle Ground"
Bill Clinton, abortion moderate?

• October 8 -- A "Saintly" Abortionist
Like abortion? Then you'll love "Vera Drake," Mike Leigh's new movie about an abortionist in '50s Britain: "[Actress Imelda] Staunton's physical performance keeps this saintly figure grounded and expands the character."

• August 31 -- NYT Springs at "Conservative" Republican Platform -- But Took a Dive Over the Democrat's Liberal One
The "conservative" Republican platform makes the lead headline of the Times and even gets its own front-page story. So how did the paper cover the liberal Democratic platform back in July?

• August 24 -- More Anti-Swift Bias from a Paper "Calling Itself" Objective
Elisabeth Bumiller and Kate Zernike's front-page story on Bush denouncing outside political ads includes a dismissive description of the Swift Boat Vets. Also: What about the "web of ties" between the left-wing Moveon.org and the Kerry campaign?

• July 28 -- NYT Abortion Cheerleading: Been There, Done That, Bought the T-Shirt
Public outcry over a notorious abortion-celebrating essay in the Times Sunday magazine results in an embarrassing and revealing Editors' Note.

• June 22 -- Pro-Abortion Bias, from the Paper that "Calls Itself" Objective
Christopher Marquis covers the Bush administration's refusal to fund a UN group it believes assists in forced abortion in China, focusing on the beefs of "family planning advocates" while wondering about a pro-life organization that "calls itself a research and education group."

• June 10 -- A Headline You'll Never See In the Times
The headline reads "Should Doctors Help With Executions? No Easy Ethical Answer." Times Watch wonders if the Times would ever extend that premise to abortion.

• June 8 -- Using and Abusing Reagan's Memory, Part I
The Times editorial page puts Reagan's memory to use to push stem-cell research--a procedure opposed by social conservatives and pro-lifers (a group to which Reagan belonged).

• May 20 -- The Denial of Communion "Tactic"
Laurie Goodstein's story on the threat by some Catholic bishops to deny communion to pro-abortion politicians reduces the theological issue to the level of cynical politics: "The tactic of denying the sacrament has been urged for years by anti-abortion groups…"

• May 12 -- Pro-Abortion, Anti-Gun "Tolerance"
An article Tuesday by New Jersey editor David Kocieniewski, "Newark Archbishop Pressures and Angers Officeholders Over Anti-Abortion Decree," hashes out the controversy over pro-abortion politicians taking communion.

• April 23 -- Straight From the Pro-Abortion Stylebook
Robin Toner's abortion stories this week, while mostly bias-free, betray a pattern of labeling consistent with the Times liberal stylebook: Abortion supporters are given flattering titles ("abortion-rights supporters") while pro-life groups are stuck with negative labels ("anti-abortion").

• March 26 -- Giving the Losers the First Word
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act passed by a wide margin, but Carl Hulse's piece lets the liberal minority have the first word: "Opponents denounced the bill, adopted on a vote of 61 to 38, as an effort to undermine the constitutional right to abortion by recognizing the fetus as a person."

• March 9 -- Changing The Subject: From Partial-Birth To An Assault On Privacy
In "Administration Sets Forth A Limited View on Privacy," Robert Pear and Eric Lichtblau change the subject from fighting partial-birth abortion to a Bush assault on medical privacy.

• March 5 -- Justice Blackmun Grows In Greenhouse
A headline to Linda Greenhouse's story on Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun casts the conservative-turned-liberal justice as having grown in office: "Released Documents Show The Remarkable Evolution Of a Supreme Court Justice." Greenhouse insists that by 1970, the liberal order of the Supreme Court was "vanishing."

• November 6 -- The Republican's He-Man Woman Haters Club
Richard Stevenson on Bush's signing of the partial-birth abortion ban emphasizes: "Before calling onto the stage with him the bill's main Congressional supporters, all men…"

• October 24 -- Have Fear, The "Religious Right" Is Here!
Abby Goodnough's label-happy front page story on Terri Schiavo focuses on how religious conservatives intend to use the victory, and calls a Florida legislator "far-right."

• September 23 -- Kate Michelman, the “Grande Dame” of Abortion
Kate Michelman’s resignation as president of Naral Pro-Choice America leads Elizabeth Becker to call her one of the “grandes dames of the reproductive rights debate….Her activism also has roots in her teenage years in Defiance, Ohio, where she became involved in civil rights protests to help immigrants.”

• July 2 -- The Bias of Ms. Jane Brody
Jane Brody’s fawning story on gay adoption reads like a press release from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

• June 26 -- Abortion: Outlawed Or Not?
Describing an “abortion boat” in Poland, reporter Peter Green describes the country’s abortion laws: “Current law allows pregnancies to be terminated only if the mother's life is in danger or if she was raped or if the baby has certain grave genetic defects.” But on Thursday he writes “abortion is outlawed” in Poland.

• June 25 -- Post-Communist Poland Ends Freedom of Abortion
Reporter Peter Green, who blames poverty in Poland on “the collapse of Communism,” finds another thing to lament about the end of the dictatorship: Fewer abortions.

• May 13 -- Blood Money?
The Times lovingly profiles a liberal group raising money for the UN Population Fund, despite evidence the fund may help facilitate forced abortions in China.

• April 25 -- The Times Santorum Obsession
While piling on Sen. Rick Santorum over his remarks on gays, the Times claims the senator led the fight “to ban the procedure opponents call late-term abortion.” Actually, that’s only what the Times calls it. 

• April 22 -- Abortion Numerology
A partial-birth abortion story features a Gollum-style struggle over just how many such abortions are performed: “It is not known how often [partial-birth abortion] is performed in the United States, but its use is limited to the latter weeks of the second trimester. Even then, it is not always the procedure doctors choose. In fact, it is practiced very rarely.” Got that?

• March 13 -- "What Critics Call" Flagrant Pro-Abortion Bias
Carl Hulse's story on Senate debate of a bill to ban "what critics call partial-birth abortion" wasn't as objectionable as the eye-catching subhead that accompanied it, a line not in the article itself: "At issue is a ban on a procedure that is highly disputed but rarely performed." Who says it's "rarely performed?"  

• July 26 -- Pro-Abortion = “Moderate”
To the New York Times, supporting “abortion rights” and “affirmative action” makes one a “moderate” and “nonideological.” So reporter Todd Purdum contended in a Thursday story chronicling Secretary of State Colin Powell’s struggles against administration “hard liners.” 

• June 30 -- Partial-Birth Abortion
The New York Times created a 28th Amendment, referring to the GOP preference to talk about partial-birth abortion instead of "suggesting overturning the Constitutional amendment allowing abortion."