The Dangers of Treating Anti-Abortion Pseudoscience as ‘Opinion’
This morning, reproductive rights activists on Twitter wondered what the hell is going on at the New York Times. For the second time in three months, the paper of record published an opinion column this morning written by someone representing Human Coalition, an anti-abortion nonprofit that calls abortion “a human rights holocaust.”
But it’s not necessarily the anti-abortion spiel that’s garnered criticism; rather, critics are upset about the lack of transparency in disclosing how the author of today’s column, Lori Szala, has a personal interest in the abortion issue. In her op-ed, she writes that linking the right to choose to economics “reduces mothers and their children to mere economic objects, and amounts to saying we are justified in killing those who impede our economic progress.”
As Jessica Mason Pieklo, a writer and adjunct law professor in Colorado, tweeted: “In this trash fire of an op-ed @nytimes fails to disclose author owns anti-abortion fake ‘crisis pregnancy centers.’ It seems relevant in terms of editorial transparency to note when authors of an op-ed have a financial stake in the outcome of an issue. If you are going to publish a piece that argues against the fundamental right of bodily autonomy at least note the author stands to profit.”
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