When lies dominate the anti-abortion narrative

By Guest Columnist Sandy Theis, of Midwest Gateway Partners, Columbus,  former Ohio reporter:  

If the anti-abortion movement is so righteous, why all the lies?

Among the movement’s oldest and often repeated lie:  there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. None exists, never has, according to every legitimate study that has evaluated the claim. That hasn’t stopped anti-choice leaders from asserting it, nor has it dissuaded 34 members of the Ohio House of Representative from co-sponsoring a bill that would require doctors to tell patients there is link.

Among the newer lies: Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald wants to become governor so he can bring “abortion on demand’’ to Ohio.  Even NARAL does not support abortion on demand. But since pro-choice FitzGerald aspires to unseat anti-choice Gov. John Kasich, members of Team Kasich feel the need to trumpet the latest Big Lie and hope it scares a sufficient number of voters.

The anti-choicers also love to mischaracterize abortion statistics. Last fall, the head of Ohio Right to Life pointed out that new state statistics showed zero abortions from pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. That one is technically true – but horribly misleading.  Ohio does not require that type of information to be tallied. 

Among the other big whoppers comes courtesy of crisis pregnancy centers – those places that intentionally market themselves as a clinic where pregnant women can go to get truthful information. Truth is not on the menu. Many centers talk women out of having an abortion by using a combination of fear-mongering and misinformation.

The lies of one Ohio crisis pregnancy center were captured on film by a woman who went undercover and asked about the morning after pill.  The counselor told her it “really could harm you… You could hemorrhage from anything like that…. It could leave damage to the cervix, it could mean hemorrhaging."

Those warnings are contrary to the opinion of the American Medical Association whose members passed a resolution that called on the FDA to consider making the morning after pill available over the counter.

More misinformation is coming our way. The lawmakers have returned from their summer recess and abortion bills await them.