In an article this morning on two pro-life votes the Senate will hold later today, a CNN reporter used a highly intriguing turn of phrase that exposes exactly how far some in the media will go to defend — subtly or otherwise — the talking points of abortion-rights supporters.

To begin with, the article refers to both bills as “abortion restrictions,” even though the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act doesn’t regulate or limit abortion in any way. Instead, it merely requires that doctors provide standard medical care to infants who manage to survive abortion procedures, the same medical care that they would provide to any other newborn of the same gestational age. In short, it aims to equalize standards of care for “normal” newborns and those who had been targeted for abortion.


Along with Democrats who oppose the legislation, media outlets often refer to this bill as anti-abortion legislation, either pretending that the text says something it does not or, more sinister, that abortion rights include the right to let an unwanted infant die of neglect.

This particular CNN article is even more troubling, though. Here’s how the reporter describes the provisions of the born-alive bill: It “would require abortion providers to work to ‘preserve the life and health’ of a fetus that was born following an attempted abortion . . .”

Did you catch that? “A fetus that was born.” What is that? Isn’t that just . . . a newborn infant? The contortion and intentional obfuscation at play here speaks for itself.