Problems at abortion clinics are routinely downplayed, ignored, or excused. The abortion rights mantra about how abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” frames the way pro-choice activism is presented in the media. Which is to say that it is always positive, always fluffy, always light. Remember the clinic owner at the top of the story? The newspaper hid the actual results of state inspections of her clinic … in a story about state inspections of her clinic … so that readers could be told she was a woman of “very strong faith.” Telling.

When activists fight safety regulations, as they have in Ohio, Virginia, and Texas this year, there is little push back from the media. Sometimes it’s the opposite of push back. Campaign finance regulators would be forgiven for considering the recent media coverage of state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Texas) as an in-kind contribution to her political campaigns. Rather than discuss safety regulations at abortion clinics in Texas, rather than discuss late-term abortion, rather than point out how American abortion laws are far laxer than laws even in Europe … we were treated to stories about her shoes. And then more stories about her shoes.

Even if you don’t consider the life of the unborn child targeted in an abortion, and only the life of the mother who is undergoing the procedure, abortion carries risk. For an industry and media that claim to care about fighting against a “war on women,” is having hallways that gurneys can pass through really an insurmountable barrier?