New York Times: Yeah yeah, Gosnell is bad, but the ‘real issue’ is pro-lifers oppose cancer screenin

They really think thoughts like this in the Blue Cocoon. It's hard to imagine how they work themselves into such logical pretzels, but I bet we can do it. Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the New York Times, defends the paper's practice of basically ignoring the Gosnell trial while hyping incidents that reflect poorly on the anti-abortion side. He basically hues to the left-wing company like that Gosnell's crime really "highlights the need for safe, affordable and available women’s reproductive health care."

This is their way of trying to blame anti-abortion people for what Gosnell did. This guy, they're trying to say, is the ultimate back-alley, coat-hanger abortionist, the very thing they warn about if abortion is ever banned. The problem with that argument, of course, is that pro-lifers haven't won a single legal or legislative battle of any significance whatsoever. Abortion on demand has been the law of the land in all 50 states since 1973, and yet Gosnell was still able to do what he did. But I'm dealing in fact and logic, which have no place in any discussion where the only thing that matters is finding some way - no matter how big a stretch - to blame the other side for something you can't possibly defend.

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This is far from Rosenthal's most egregious statement, however. He ends on this curious note:

Through this sort of intimidation and through legitimate political action, anti-abortion forces have been alarmingly successful in restricting women’s access to reproductive health services, including birth control, cancer screening and other services. That is the real issue.

Did you know that anti-abortion activists were against cancer screening? Neither did I. Because they're not. What Rosenthal is doing here is a classic deflection. Because some clinics who perform abortions also offer cancer screening, Rosenthal is conflating the two and trying to make the case that because people protest against one thing a clinic does, they must be opposed to everything that clinic does. After all, if the clinic shut down, it couldn't perform the cancer screenings. Ergo, pro-lifers hate cancer screenings and want you to die from cancer! What rot. That's like saying that police who shut down a deli that was a front for the mob most be in favor of mass starvation. People were eating there! Now they won't be able to eat! Rosenthal knows perfectly well that there are plenty of places you can get cancer screenings that don't perform abortions. He doesn't even believe the argument he's making. He's just making it because he has to defend the pro-abortion position no matter what, and he has to find some way to make the case that the Gosnell trial isn't news because that's the editorial decision the Times has made. You can only defend absurd decisions by saying absurd things, so that's what Rosenthal is doing. Pro-lifers against cancer screenings . . . good Lord. What will they come up with next?