Media Panics and Gonzales v. Carhart

So last night, when I came home from class, I watched America's Next Top Model (I had taped it earlier). A commercial during the tape said that a Supreme Court case was decided today that restricts Roe v. Wade. I am a strong pro-choice advocate, so I was scared and dismayed that the Supreme Court was restricting my rights. I was too tired to figure out what was going on last night, so I decided to figure it out this morning.

First, I went to: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/the_skinny/main2703879.shtml

There, I read their comments and watched the video of the legal analyst. I still didn't understand what was going on exactly. The video seemed intentionally vague about the scope of the decision and the law passed by Congress that the decision had affirmed. A lot of questions ran through my mind after watching the analyst's opinions. Were ALL abortions after the first trimester banned? What about those that would save the mother's life? Why did Justice Kennedy deliver the majority opinion of the court; why was someone so liberal in favor of restricting rights?

I decided, then, to stop looking to the news for my news. I went straight to the source and found the published opinion of the United States Supreme Court on their website (Here's a link if you're interested: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf).

What I found was startling -- the decision was not very restrictive at all. What the decision does restrict is partial birth abortions only; that is, those in which the fetus is killed after being delivered from the mother's womb intact through crushing the skull or sucking the brains out. It does not restrict any other kind of second term abortion, only those in which a viable fetus is deliberately taken out of the womb, still alive, and killed while out of the womb. If a fetus is aborted while still in the womb (through medication or vacuum or any other way), that is still legal. Many doctors also said that the partial birth abortion restricted by the upheld law is not medically necessary and there are other ways of aborting a fetus.

While it does make me uncomfortable to see this decision restrict a woman's right to choose, no matter how gruesome the means of choosing are, I am not completely disappointed by the decision as I had expected to be.

This brings me to the subject of media panics. A media panic is when a news outlet, usually, creates undue anxiety surrounding a hot button issue. After having read the Court's opinion on this case, I would like to characterize the fervor of the news surrounding it as a media panic for several reasons.

1. The local news promotions cited this decision as heavily restricting Roe v. Wade (it didn't)
2. This decision pushed Virginia Tech news to the second story (more a tertiary reason, but there is significance)
3. The lack of concrete facts found on legitimate news websites

Local news promotions are always sensational, so that reason isn't so important as characterizing the events surrounding this decision as a media panic, but it is a factor.

That the decision pushed Virginia Tech news to the second story of the night might make sense because the Virginia Tech shootings happened on Monday and the Supreme Court decision happened yesterday. However, the significance this event does have is that there were two decisions rendered at the Supreme Court yesterday. The second was in regards to "whether attempted burglary, as defined by Florida law, is a “violent felony” under ACCA [Armed Career Criminal Act]." And on Tuesday, the Supreme Court delivered three different decisions. Obviously, these other decisions lacked something that Gonzales v. Carhart (the abortion case) didn't for it to be able to usurp the top story spot reserved for Virginia Tech news the past two days. That thing is that abortion is controversial and the violence of attempted burglary is not. Basically, the news found a way to alarm people with the Gonzales case that it didn't with any other.

The most surprising aspect of this media panic is how CBSnews.com had barely any factual, concrete information about the opinion of the Court and, instead, had a five minute video with a legal analyst analyzing something the viewer probably didn't even completely understand. Keeping the viewers ignorant brings them back to the news. And keeping them only partially informed makes them slaves to the media because they believe they are in greater danger of whatever than they actually are.

Also, in that video, the correspondant interviewing the legal analyst kept referring to this decision as something Justice Alito swayed. In a media panic, someone needs to be blamed. CBS chose Alito, for what seems to me unclear reasons (something about his relationship with Justice O'Connor). Kennedy supports Roe v. Wade and delivered the Gonzales MAJORITY opinion. Maybe he should have been the focus of their blame (not that anyone should be to blame).

I hate media panics in general because it reminds me that the news is not all about informing the public, but about convincing the public they need to be informed so they can stay in business.