The once venerable Lancet medical journal has lauded Democrat-run U.S. states that are functioning as abortion sanctuaries for “health-care refugees” traveling from states where abortions are restricted or banned.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, “16 states have severely restricted or banned the procedure and bans in ten more states are likely to take effect in a matter of weeks,” the UK-based Lancet laments in its July 9 issue.
“However, in 22 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia, abortion access is protected,” it notes appreciatively. “Several claim to be abortion sanctuaries as they prepare for an influx of health-care refugees who can afford to travel for an abortion no longer available at home.”
In a remarkable case of journalistic propaganda, the article cites nine pro-choice spokespersons in its tirade against the Dobbs decision, while not bothering to quote a single representative of the pro-life position.
As it often does, the Lancet resorts to disingenuous phrasing such as its untruthful declaration that in Dobbs the Supreme Court “abolished a federal right to abortion,” rather than reversing the prior Court’s erroneous invention of a Constitutional right that never existed.
Watch as an abortion supporter sets out her vision of a post-Roe future:
In a rare moment of journalistic fraternal correction, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial board ran an entire op-ed in May fact-checking the Lancet’s tendentious reporting on abortion politics in the U.S.
“The Lancet is trying to lend the imprimatur of science to an American legal and political debate,” the WSJ editors wrote. “But the journal will damage the pro-abortion cause if the public starts to dismiss medical expertise as merely another vehicle for the progressive agenda.”
In its current article, the Lancet warns of a post-Roe future fraught with “chaos,” holding up for emulation the example of public officials who have declared they will not enforce pro-life legislation as heroes of abortion rights.
In a curiously anti-professional stance for a medical journal, the Lancet praises Connecticut’s decision to allow nurse midwives, physician assistants, and advanced practice nurses to perform abortions, rather than limiting the practice to medical doctors.
The journal also lauds the Biden administration’s pledge to defend women who travel from states in which abortion is banned to get the procedure in another part of the country as well as availability of medical abortions.
While still functioning tangentially as a medical journal, the Lancet has reinvented itself as a woke propaganda machine to push what it calls “the progressive agenda.” While this may earn the magazine plaudits from its like-minded readers, these short-term victories will almost certainly result in the progressive loss of credibility from those who still care about science.