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Tags: AP | Personhood | Bill | abortion
OPINION

AP Gets It Wrong on 'Personhood' Bill

Dr. Alveda C. King By Friday, 27 September 2013 10:16 AM EDT Current | Bio | Archive

If media members print distortions, half-truths, or lies, they are duty-bound to print corrections. The Associated Press has printed what I would consider a lie. Below is an excerpt from The Washington Post article headlined “In little-noted LG race, GOP’s voluble and volatile Jackson debates wonky Dem doctor, Northam."
 
"Virginia’s lieutenant governor candidates . . . clashed over healthcare, how to care for the dangerously mentally ill, and women’s access to reproductive health services.”
 
In their story on the Virginia lieutenant governor candidates’ debate, it is printed as fact a false claim [easily fact-checked as false] of one of the candidates. The article states that
the “personhood” bill considered by the Virginia legislature last year would have outlawed most forms of abortion in the state. In fact, the bill would have outlawed no abortions in the state.
 
A brief Google search can reveal that the personhood bill’s summary declares that any rights granted to an unborn child are “subject only to the laws and Constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the Commonwealth.”
 
So the bill is restricted by Roe v. Wade and every subsequent abortion decision by the Supreme Court. In other words, it would prohibit no abortions. Missouri has had almost identical language in its state code for years, language that has been upheld in court and which has barred zero abortions.
 
Obviously, The Associated Press and perhaps millions of Americans don’t understand the concept of “personhood” that upholds the constitutional mantra that all men [people] are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Now that the door is open wider on the discussion of unalienable [civil] rights, let’s demand the basic and intrinsic civil right of life for all persons, born and preborn.
 
On the wings of the 50th anniversary of The Civil Rights Act enacted July 2, 1964, are the cries of the aborted babies. While the landmark legislation outlawed major forms of racial, ethnic, national, religious, minority, and female discrimination, people in the womb were left out.
 
This misleading article The Associated Press should be corrected immediately — anything less would mean that the AP no longer values the truth.
 
Dr. Alveda C. King grew up in the civil rights movement led by her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is a pastoral associate and director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries. Her family home in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed, as was her father’s church office in Louisville, Ky. Alveda herself was jailed during the open housing movement. Read more reports from Dr. Alveda C. King — Click Here Now.
 
 

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DrAlvedaCKing
If media members print distortions, half-truths, or lies, they are duty-bound to print corrections. Associated Press reporter Bob Lewis has printed what I would consider a lie.
AP,Personhood,Bill,abortion
452
2013-16-27
Friday, 27 September 2013 10:16 AM
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