When I was a reporter I’d sometimes hear a reporter come back with an anonymous quote for a story that was just perfect. I mean a perfectly perfect quote from an anonymous source. A source that said exactly what the reporter needed them to say with a flourish of the poet. And who wished to remain anonymous.
Editors would usually sniff these out pretty well. I remember one editor who would see quotes like that and just say, “horse hockey.”
Well, I just read this anecdote from an anonymous abortionist in the New York Times. And I’m betting that my old editor would be saying “horse hockey” on this one.
Now, could it have happened? Sure. It COULD have. Anything is possible. But I’m sorry, this story is just a little too convenient. I’m thinking some New York Times fact checkers should get on this. Frank Bruni writes:
He shared a story about one of the loudest abortion foes he ever encountered, a woman who stood year in and year out on a ladder, so that her head would be above other protesters’ as she shouted “murderer” at him and other doctors and “whore” at every woman who walked into the clinic.
One day she was missing. “I thought, ‘I hope she’s O.K.,’ ” he recalled. He walked into an examining room to find her there. She needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled.
She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”
“Nothing like life,” he responded, “to teach you a little more.”
A week later, she was back on her ladder.
You gotta’ love the little flourish of the abortionist heading to work who got worried because he didn’t see his favorite widdle pro-lifer on the ladder that morning. You know how caring and protective those abortionists get about those pro-lifers on the sidewalk.
I’m not saying that Bruni made it up all by his lonesome. I’m not saying the abortionist doesn’t exist. I’m not saying that this didn’t happen to an abortionist that might actually exist. I’m just saying what my old editor would say. Horse hockey.
March 26, 2012 at 2:59 am
The whole column reads like the work of a fabulist, frankly. I call horse hockey on the whole thing.
March 26, 2012 at 3:06 am
Peeeeeeyou! That's worse than the diaper I changed this morning!
March 26, 2012 at 3:29 am
I haven't heard even the phrase 'don't murder your baby' in years- the prolifers I know say words like 'let your baby live', etc- so MAYBE a doctor would be called that- but no group of prolifers would tolerate the word 'whore' from a fellow prolifer day in and day out (first of all, it is wrong- but we are mostly moms with kids and retirees- we don't hateful language around our kids)
March 26, 2012 at 3:43 am
This is smelly. Like certain parts of my yard where the dogs do their business. Or maybe like the leftovers from a few Fridays ago that destroyed some Tupperware… very fishy.
March 26, 2012 at 3:48 am
Yeah, I heard the same story from another abortionist on the radio a couple of years ago. Apparently they support recycling and spreading horse manure.
March 26, 2012 at 6:39 am
I'm sorry, Patrick! Did they get away with a quote about a ladder? I'd think a chair would be good enough. Is the abortionist 100? And did they use "whore" in those days? Sounds a bit like the stories they told about Saintly people at a Baptist church I attended. Lol.
The New York Times, seems to have been going downhill since forever.
Pretty similar to that Castration Story, that turned out to be a blatant fib!
March 26, 2012 at 6:42 am
Oops. Matthew. Patrick linked on Facebook. Wish you'd put name above. Not below. But makes sense. You were in newspaper before this.
March 26, 2012 at 6:51 am
I smell burning trousers. Or perhaps "Prevaricator, Prevaricator, I do believe your smoldering britches require some water."
March 26, 2012 at 11:49 am
Say it is true. All that does is make the woman a hypocrite. It does not now make abortion good.
But that is just it – when your argument is incorrect, you attack the opponent. Abortion proponents cannot win the argument through moral, ethical, or scientific means, so they smear pro-lifers.
March 26, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Wouldn't this be a HIPPA violation if it is a true story anyway?
March 26, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Good point, GeekLady.
I know that my mom had a simple rule for softball that should apply here… be far harsher on the side you'd be presumed to favor than the one you'd be presumed to disfavor. Since the quote "makes" the story, you can't have it anonymous– that's cheap and foolish.
March 26, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Well, if the story was true then presumably the women on the ladder would be identifiable by her fellow protesters, in which case it would be a HIPPA violation. But a story about an unnamed and unidentifiable person does not violate HIPPA.
March 26, 2012 at 10:26 pm
How did she get into the clinic, past all her fellow protesters, without being recognized?
March 27, 2012 at 2:09 am
Wow, the New York Times fabricating a story in favor of abortionists?
In other news, Al Qaeda was sharply critical of American foreign policy.
March 27, 2012 at 9:45 am
Pathetic. The NYT will literally print ANYTHING if it 'supports' the abortion lobby. Since they have no science, no economics, and no social benefits to show for their stance on this practice, they now go to cheesy, impossible smears against the opposition.
I walked past an abortion clinic on my way to work every day for 10 years. The protesters there NEVER said a nasty word to anyone. They prayed, they asked women to reconsider their actions, they handed out coffee, donuts and literature, but they were in no way so rude. It just doesnt ring true at all.
March 28, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Don, I have to take HIPPA training along with all my other compliance training every year. ANYTHING that involves your health information and the press requires consent or it's a violation.