NYT Tries To Fact Check Trump's Tweet on Abortion, Immediately Ends Up Backfiring on Twitter
In light of the recent fierce discussion over late-term and even post-birth abortions, Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse introduced a bill called the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require doctors and medical personnel to make all efforts to save the life of a baby that survived an attempted abortion, rather than kill it or stand idly by while it died naturally.
Incredibly, that bill failed to achieve the necessary votes for passage on Monday, according to The Daily Wire, after only three Democrats joined with Republicans to vote in favor of saving an abortion survivor’s life, while 44 other Senate Democrats heartlessly voted against the measure.
In response to that grotesque and disheartening outcome, President Donald Trump excoriated Democrats in a pair of fiery tweets Monday evening, calling the left “extreme” for being in favor of “executing babies” after they had been born.
Trump tweeted, “Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth.”
Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2019
He added, “This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”
….This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2019
As if on cue, The New York Times set about the next day with an attempt to “fact check” the president’s outraged tweets, but that effort failed in rather stunning fashion — at least on social media.
Just scroll down through the overwhelmingly negative comments on the tweet from The Times.
Babies are rarely born alive after abortion procedures, and if they are, doctors do not kill them. These are the facts behind President Trump’s misleading tweet in the latest abortion battle. https://t.co/Jb4RVaj8fi
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) February 28, 2019
The article from The Times glossed over what the bill would actually do — “require doctors to use all means available to save the life of a child born alive after an attempted abortion” — while highlighting criticism from opponents who falsely claimed the measure was “aimed at discouraging doctors from performing legal abortions.”
The article also argued that the bill was redundant due to a 2002 law known as the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, though they failed to mention that prior law had no teeth for enforcement.
The Times article then quoted a couple doctors who insisted that babies surviving attempted abortions “hardly ever happens,” and provided various facts and figures about the age of infant viability to support the notion that late-term abortions are exceedingly rare — around 1 percent of all abortions — without mentioning that the 1 percent is still in the ballpark of around 10,000 such deadly procedures per year.
Yet, the Times admitted near the end of the article that aborted babies sometimes are born alive, and that doctors and patients will allow the baby to die naturally, all while being kept “comfortable” — echoing what Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in early February.
The article also admitted in the eighth paragraph, “The bill would force doctors to resuscitate such an infant, even if the parents did not want those measures.”
The tweet-trackers at Twitchy compiled a couple dozen of the brutal responses they received from Twitter users to highlight just how enormously the “fact check” of Trump’s tweets had backfired on The Times.
Countless users wondered why Democrats would vote against the bill if the issue the bill addressed was truly so “rare” and uncommon, as if that were indeed the case, a vote in favor of it really wouldn’t matter.
One user referenced Gov. Northam’s despicable commentary, and tweeted, “How can you work for the NYTimes and not know what Northam said, which kicked all this off? He specifically talked about newborns being born and then a discussion on what to do with them. This is why you’re fake news.”
Still another user hinted at Northam’s remarks and noted, “‘rarely born alive’ I guess that’s okay then! As long as they’re just rarely murdered after they’re already born and alive! Hopefully they’re kept comfortable!”
There isn’t near enough room here to include all of the saddened or snarky replies to The Times, but suffice it to say, the effort to “fact check” the president’s righteous and justified anger while defending Democrats voting against saving the life of newborn infants did not go over well, at all.
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