If we\u00a0didn’t know better from firsthand experience, we might\u00a0be forgiven for\u00a0believing that\u00a0the pro-life movement is potentially dangerous.<\/p>\n

Some things should be reported – assault is never ok, whether aimed at children, women, peers, or abortion doctors. But the media is so quick to judge on the issue of pro-life activism that some skip the journalistic step of investigation and corroboration. In March, the CBC reported<\/a> on an incident where a woman alleged a man had come up, asked her name, and then thrown a can of paint in her face, causing damage to one eye. In the story, prominent words were “assault”, “hate crime”, and “security”.<\/p>\n

That woman is now being charged for giving a false claim, and outright lying to police. The incident never happened.<\/a> Yet, in reporting on the false claim, The Record <\/a>reinforces the anti-pro-life narrative by concluding with words from Lyndsey Butcher, Executive Director of the local abortion clinic. They have never had an altercation with a pro-life advocate, she admits. But she, and the article, conclude with the dire words, “We think it’s sort of only a matter of time.”<\/p>\n

Why would she think that if she has no experience to bear it out?\u00a0And why would news outlets do such a shoddy job of their reporting, and then also refrain from printing a letter to the editor clarifying things for readers? Jonathan vanMaren shares the letter that wasn’t published<\/a>, and\u00a0discusses the biased narrative the pro-life movement is up against. It is up to each one of us to shift that narrative in conversations we may have in our daily lives. One-on-one interactions continue to be the best way to change hearts, change minds, and save lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we\u00a0didn’t know better from firsthand experience, we might\u00a0be forgiven for\u00a0believing that\u00a0the pro-life movement is potentially dangerous. Some things should be reported – assault is never ok, whether aimed at children, women, peers, or abortion doctors. But the media is so quick to judge on the issue of pro-life activism that some skip the journalistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3014,"featured_media":2584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[281,284,280],"tags":[358,746,748,747,205,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2585,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions\/2585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}