(LifeSiteNews) — One of the key advantages that abortion activists have in state-level referendums is their ability to almost entirely control the narrative (as I noted in First Things here and here and covered on the LSN podcast here). The mainstream media covers abortion stories from a pro-abortion perspective, operating from the same premises as organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Thus, even if the New York Times or the Washington Post calls a pro-life leader during the referendum and quotes him, they are proceeding from the assumption that abortion is “healthcare.” The presupposition means that pro-lifers are constantly on the defensive because those covering these important races are doing so with the underlying view that pro-life premises are false. 

That is why the mainstream press chooses to use dehumanizing language when it refers to pre-born children in the womb, because the terminology we use matters. If every story about abortion actually cited the key premise of the pro-life worldview – that a child in the womb is a unique, whole, living human being – media stories would read much differently.

READ: Moms of babies with abnormalities slam Texas ruling allowing abortion for fatal diagnosis

For example, the coverage of the current court battle in Texas, in which a mother is suing to have her baby aborted after the child was diagnosed with trisomy 18, does not present the story as one of eugenics – that a child in the womb should be killed because he or she is somehow imperfect. It is rather presented as an obvious injustice that this mother cannot have an abortion for that precise reason. 

CNN, for example, headlined its story, “Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocks woman from getting emergency abortion,” making it seem as if the mother needed an abortion to protect her own health, though abortions are never medically necessary. But the so-called “emergency” was that she did not want to be pregnant with a baby who had trisomy 18 and was being legally prevented from not aborting that baby.

Of course, CNN carefully referred to “her fetus” and quoted her lawyer – utterly without irony – calling the Texas attorney general’s attempt to stop the abortion a “miscarriage of justice.” Pro-life legislators across the U.S. must be prepared for this – a full-on onslaught by the press on behalf of the abortion movement. Without doubt, they are searching for more story subjects as we speak. 

READ: Texas Supreme Court blocks lower court order allowing abortion of baby with trisomy 18

A story from December 7, however, went largely unremarked on. Abortion activists have the mainstream press, and they know that Big Tech is on their team. However, many pro-life groups have still managed to accrue enormous followings on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Meta (Facebook), including Live Action, which racks up millions of views on their videos exposing the truth about abortion procedures. Abortion activists are hoping to choke off this avenue for impacting culture and getting the truth out as well. From The Hill:  

House Democrats on Thursday called on Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk to push back on the “rapid spread of abortion misinformation and disinformation,” with the lawmakers saying people are being discouraged from receiving abortion services due to “bad medical advice.” The Democratic representatives on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said the misinformation and disinformation being spread online was putting people’s health at risk.

“As the legal status of abortion changes across the country and a number of state legislatures impose drastic new restrictions on health care choices, people seeking information about abortion care and services turn to [Facebook, Instagram, and X] for accurate and reliable information—not propaganda,” the lawmakers stated in the letter. “Yet individuals and groups that are anti-choice are promoting dangerously inaccurate medical information and false content about abortion online.” In their letter to Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, lawmakers cited the community standards that the platforms Threads, Instagram and Facebook all employ, saying misinformation was still being proliferated despite what Meta has stated. They noted posts and advertisements for products that claimed to be able to reverse chemical abortions, something the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said is “unproven and unethical.”

Abortion pill reversal is, in fact, effective, and there are many babies alive today who prove it. Facebook has targeted these ads in the past, but the Democrats, led by Congressman Jamie Raskin, claimed that X has “removed posts for advocating access to abortion” while “posts spreading false information about abortion are allowed to remain on your platform.” The Democrats then demanded that both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg take swift steps to deal with this pro-life “misinformation” and that they submit a briefing to the Oversight Committee to summarize their efforts afterwards.  

READ: Tucker Carlson slams top Democrat for pushing war with Russia to stop ‘anti-gay, anti-trans’ beliefs

Democrats are essentially calling for social media companies to operate from the assumption that the abortion movement is correct, just as the mainstream press does. Thus, killing pre-born disabled babies is “compassionate”; abortion is “healthcare”; saving babies through abortion pill reversal does not work; abortion bans “kill women” (but not babies!); abortion is a “human right.” If they completely choke off the ability of pro-lifers to reach people online, they control virtually all mainstream sources of information – leaving pro-lifers to take our message to the streets as we have so many times before.