Chris Matthews disses Democrats (falsely) on abortion

The following is from Media Matters and is another example of how our so-called "journalists" mess with the truth because of their need to create controversy to keep viewers watching, or because they are biased in favor of the Republican Party.

June 12 - Hardball. Matthews says "I don't hear Democrats talk ... about the need to reduce the number of abortions. They talk about the rights issue, the constitutional question of Roe v. Wade, but you don't hear them talking a lot about the need for education, for much fewer, maybe enormously fewer, unwanted pregnancies, which is the reason people get abortions."


Is Matthews ignorant as to what Democratic leaders have said, or again is he merely trying to create a controversy where there is none?

Matthews' statement came shortly after Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted that Senator Obama "...wants to downplay and discourage the number of abortions in this country, to have more family planning, to avoid unwanted pregnancies."

Perhaps here is the key to Matthews' false accusation. Perhaps he is in agreement with the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant fundamentalists who are actively trying to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal again. Both groups, disparate though they be, are also on record as opposing family planning and the use of contraceptives.

It's a "Catch-22." Make abortions illegal, but also deny people access to the means of avoiding unwanted pregnancies.


At Messiah College on April 13, Obama said that "[W]e can certainly agree on the fact that we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion." He also said, "I think that we can reduce abortions and I think we should make sure that adoption is an option for people out there."

While Obama "is an original co-sponsor of legislation to expand access to contraception, health information and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies," the extreme Right, which includes the Bush administration, has in the past seven and one-half years, done everything in its power to deny "access to contraception, health information and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies."

The extreme Right powered by the Bushites, has also continued to plague us with "abstinence only" sex education, which has been proven time and again to be ineffective, and at the same time denied funding to those who wish to provide accurate "health" information and preventive services.


Hillary Clinton, on March 6, said that "...making it harder for women to get information, counseling and family planning services is a counterproductive policy." In other words, without this information along with family planning services , "there will be more unwanted pregnancies. And without access to adequate medical care, many women will die undergoing unsafe abortions."

In another speech in January of 2005, Senator Clinton referenced the importance of "comprehensive education and accurate information" in order to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

On CNN's The Situation Room of June 4, Clinton she asserted that abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare."


Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in his book, Positively American, affirmed the goal of reducing abortions by 50%. On the website related to the book, a statement appears emphasizing appropriate sex education in public schools, making contraceptives more available, increasing spending for federal family planning programs, and creating a national campaign to help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.


On Hardball, October 5, 2005, Howard Dean told Matthews "I think we ought to have the smallest number of abortions as possible. You know, the number of abortions have gone up since George Bush has been president. ...we ought to reduce abortions to the smallest number possible. But I don't think you do that by taking away the right of women to make up their own mind about the way their lives are going to be shaped."


December 29, 2004, on Hardball. The governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell told Andrea Mitchell that Democrats "all want to see the number of abortions reduced. And there are plenty of ways to do that, with sex education, sex education on the preventative side, with making prevention tools available to young people, by speeding up the process of adoption..."


Obviously, Chris Matthews has an ulterior motive for his slam against the Democrats. Clearly, his comment is false and misleading. It appears to be a statement intended to denigrate Democrats by lying about their views on abortions.

Furthermore, he doesn't discuss the real issue, which is this: Those opposed to legal abortion in this country, simply don't give a damn for women caught in an abortion decision dilemma, because they predicate their opposition on religious dogma. It's the age-old Christian/Catholic theory that it's better a person die than go to Hell for their sin. Here the fundamentalists with their anti-sex fulminations have joined forces with what used to be their arch-enemy, the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus, we have the incredibly stupid and harmful policies put in place by the Bush administration which deny proper sex education and access to contraceptives both of which would, in fact, help reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus abortions, in favor of a failed policy that promotes abstinence and increases unwanted pregnancies and thus abortions.

Under the Bush administration, the number of abortions has increased!

And maybe Matthews could be sent back to Podunk, USA, where his false statements and misleading comments will be less of a threat to honest and open discussion of the issues.