Abortion Providers Would Like You to Please Stop Interviewing Anti-Abortion Propagandists

[Nevilledog]

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https://jezebel.com/abortion-providers-would-like-you-to-please-stop-interv-1849407091

Abortion providers have a rather simple request for members of the media: “Stop giving air-time to anti-abortion activists.” In a letter published Monday exclusively on Jezebel, more than 600 doctors, nurses, social workers, nonprofit organizations and abortion support staffers demanded media get wise to how damaging “both sides” coverage actually is.

“We are asking for a commitment from the community of media outlets reporting on abortion to keep in mind the true danger that you present when interviewing anti-abortion extremists,” reads the letter, which was organized by Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH). “You are giving the opportunity for dangerous lies to spread. You are, by way of asking them questions, legitimizing their answers. You are allowing hateful, dangerous harassers to build a base that encourages protesting at clinics, stalking and harming clinic staff and abortion providers, and online and in-person abuse of people who have abortions and those who support them in getting that care.”

Dr. Christina Bourne, a family medicine physician and abortion provider in Oklahoma and Kansas, said normalizing abortion care is, to her, an integral part of her job. “Being a public facing abortion provider is important to me. What we face on a day-to-day basis is truly terrorism,” Bourne told Jezebel by phone. “How we can counter this terrorism is very aggressive normalization of abortion.”

However, when Bourne’s work to provide quality medical care is given equal weight as anti-abortion activists or politicians—who often know next to nothing about how pregnancy and abortion actually work—that’s when she has a problem. “I think it’s important to tell a full story,” she said. “But what we know about abortion is it’s one of the safest things we do in healthcare. It’s one of the safest medical procedures we do. All evidence points to its safety. Yet day to day we experience terrorism. We experience terrorism at the hands of anti-choice protesters. Centering these people who propagate fear, propagate lies, propagate racist theories is...lending credibility to off-the-wall narratives.”

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