A conservative, “never Trump” web site has been caught issuing a false factcheck that erroneously claims Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t support abortions up to birth. The Distpatch has since removed the factcheck after coming under criticism from pro-life advocates but Facebook has already censored a pro-life group’s television commercial as a result of it.
The Dispatch fact check is being used by Facebook to censor a new ad that calls out Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for supporting taxpayer-funded abortions up to birth. Facebook banned the political ads from the Susan B. Anthony List this week, citing a fact check by The Dispatch as evidence.
Late Friday, however, The Dispatch did remove the fact check and claimed it was posted prematurely, but pro-life advocates question whether that’s legitimate.
“The fact-check was published in error and in draft form, before it had been through final edits and our own internal fact-checking process,” editor Steve Hayes wrote.
He continued: “As a result, the viral post was assigned a “partly false” rating that we have determined is not justified after completing The Dispatch fact-checking process. We regret the error and apologize to the Women Speak Out PAC. We’ve pulled the fact-check and lifted the rating.”
The initially published Dispatch fact check got its conclusion wrong.
According to the now-removed article:
Women Speak Out PAC [an SBA List partner] claims that “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support abortion on demand, up to the moment of birth, even at 9 months, all at taxpayer expense. Biden and Harris are pro-abortion fanatics.”
While Joe Biden does support abortion rights and federal funding for abortion, this post is misleading and missing context.
The Dispatch argued that because neither Biden nor Harris has explicitly stated their support for abortions through all nine months, it is wrong to say that they support them. But Biden and Harris, through their own words and votes, have essentially supported unlimited abortions up to birth.
Another problem is that the fact check cited evidence that contradicts its own conclusion.
For example, it wrote:
Harris co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade and remove state restrictions on abortions. Specifically, the bill would remove the following the restriction: “A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating physician, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant woman’s life or health.”
Pro-life leaders nicknamed that bill the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act” because it would invalidated almost all state and federal abortion regulations, including waiting periods, informed consent requirements, bans on late-term abortions and sex-selection abortions and more.
Harris also recently opposed legislation to protect late-term unborn babies from abortion and newborns from infanticide. In 2018, she was a vocal opponent of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks when strong scientific evidence indicates unborn babies can feel pain.
More evidence in support of the SBA List ad comes from Harris’s and Biden’s stated desire to “codify” Roe v. Wade into federal law, something the fact checker acknowledged but did not fully explain the impact of.
The 1973 Supreme Court ruling forced states to legalize abortion on demand, and some states – including Colorado and New Mexico – still do not have any gestational limits on the killing of unborn babies in abortions. Roe also made the U.S. one of only seven countries in the world that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy – a fact confirmed by the Washington Post in 2017.
The fact checker continued:
The companion case to Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, prohibited restrictions on abortions if for reason’s of the health of the mother: “… the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age relevant to the well-being of the patient.”
If the fact checker would have connected this with the SBA List ad, it would have had to admit that ad is true.
For decades, legal experts, pro-life advocates and even some abortionists themselves have pointed out that the “health” exception for late-term abortions is so broad that basically anything qualifies. Some abortionists even consider pregnancy itself to be enough of a “health” reason to abort an unborn baby.
Another fact that The Dispatch failed to mention is Biden said in June that he supports a “woman’s constitutional right to choice under any circumstances.”
Harris has been even more open about supporting abortion without limits through the third trimester. In 2019, The Daily Caller asked Harris “if there was a point at which [abortion] would be considered immoral.” Avoiding a direct answer, she responded: “I think it’s up to a woman to make that decision, and I will always stand by that. I think she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her priest, with her spouse. I would leave that decision up to them.”
Why are Harris and Biden being vague in their statements about abortion? Probably because they know that their billion-dollar abortion industry backers want abortions without restriction up to birth and voters do not.
A 2019 Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that just 6 percent of Americans said abortions should be allowed up until the birth of the child, while only 8 percent said they should be permitted up to the third trimester. Similarly, a Gallup poll released in June found that just 29 percent of Americans believe abortions should be legal in all circumstances.
It’s clear that the Democrat presidential candidates’ pro-abortion stance is extreme and out of touch with most Americans, but liberal news outlets and fact checkers seem to be hiding the fact when they should be exposing it.
