Facebook notified Live Action founder and president Lila Rose on Friday that her organization’s pro-life posts would be subjected to “reduced distribution and other restrictions” after “additional reporting from an independent fact-checker” had deemed the content “false news.” Live Action is a non-profit organization “dedicated to exposing the truth about abortion and affirming the life of every child.” The alleged third-party “fact checkers” quoted abortion doctors as evidence that Live Action’s claim that “abortion is never medically necessary” is false.
“Facebook has informed us that the page of Live Action President Lila Rose, and any links to our website now have ‘reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news,'” said Live Action to Breitbart News.
The organization added that in addition to “reduced distribution,” Facebook had also notified Live Action and its founder’s combined 3 million followers that they had shared “false news.”
“Your Page has violations,” read an alert sent to Rose from Facebook alert sent to Rose. “Your page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. People will also be able to see if a Page has a history of sharing false news.”
According to Live Action, the content marked “false” by Facebook had been two videos affirming that “abortion is never medically necessary.” One video featured neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb discussing the topic. The second video showed a recent speech by the organization’s founder speaking on the same subject.
Live Action told Breitbart News that Facebook’s third-party “fact-checking” consisted of an article that quoted two abortionists — Daniel Grossman and Robyn Schickler — “who both have a vested interest in profiting off of the procedure.”
A section of the abortionists’ quotes read as follows:
While it is possible for early delivery to preserve both the life of the mother and child in the event of a life-threatening condition, as the video suggests, it does not mention that this is only applicable when a fetus’ gestational age is advanced enough that its survival outside the womb is possible (generally >24 weeks old). In situations where a fetus has not developed sufficiently, it would not be possible for expedited delivery to save its life.
“And yet, this is exactly what one of the videos flagged says,” reacted Live Action, noting that in the video featuring Kolb, the doctor acknowledges that “some babies do need to be delivered before they are able to survive outside of the womb,” adding that those situations, however, are considered “a preterm delivery, not an abortion.”
“In the other video flagged, Lila makes it clear that preterm delivery is not abortion, even if the child does not survive,” added Live Action. “Furthermore, she makes it clear that in cases where it is certain the baby cannot survive, such as ectopic pregnancy, removing the child from the womb is still not abortion. Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of the preborn child.”
Rose attests that thousands of OB-GYNs and other medical professionals around the world agree with Live Action’s position that “abortion is never medically necessary.”
Coinciding with Rose’s assertion, the executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life ObGYNS (AAPLOG), Dr. Donna Harrison, released a statement on Friday in response to Facebook’s so-called “fact-checking” of the pro-life content.
“These fact-checkers need to be fact-checked,” said Dr. Harrison. “They are in error to claim that elective abortion is medically necessary to save the life of the mother. They did not cite even one example where an abortion, the intentional killing of a living child in utero, would be superior to delivering that child.”
“The two Live Action videos state that there will be cases when a child is delivered too early to survive outside of the womb in order to save a mother’s life,” added the AAPLOG executive director. “There is a very big difference between pre-viable separations and elective abortion.”
Harrison went on to explain how “pre-viable separations” and “elective abortions” are not the same. In the case of a pre-viable separation — while it is understood that the fetus may not survive — the child is still delivered so that medical professionals can try to save the baby’s life. Conversely, an elective abortion is the intentional and direct decision to end the baby’s life.
“The intent of a delivery is to produce, if possible, both a live baby and live mom,” affirmed Harrison. “The intent of an abortion is to produce a dead baby.”
Rose told Breitbart News that the manner in which Facebook “fact-checked” her organization’s content is “clear evidence” of the platform’s “bias and discrimination” against pro-life views.
“Not only did they fail to get disinterested perspectives, they appear to have gone out of their way to find pro-abortion activists whose public opposition to our views is indisputable,” said Rose.
“This is clear evidence of bias and discrimination against our over three million strong Facebook community members and an outrageous act of censorship on the part of Facebook,” added Rose. “Continued efforts to censor Live Action will have tremendous implications, not only for the pro-life movement, but for free speech in America.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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