The Washington Post posted an AP story this afternoon that referred to Court of Appeals nominee Michael McConnell’s “outspoken opposition to abortion.”
Outspoken opposition? I don’t know McConnell, but none of the descriptions of him I’ve read suggest that he’s “outspoken” on abortion, or indeed on anything else. He thought Roe v. Wade a flawed opinion, but then so do many liberals. He’s made no secret of his view of abortion, but unless “outspoken” is a synonym of “frank” I think the term is misleading here.
A quick check on Nexis, however, suggests that the WaPo thinks all opponents of abortion are by definition outspoken, something that is not true for proponents.
A search on the word “outspoken” occurring within seven words of “abortion” in WaPo articles since January 1996 reveals 20 articles mentioning abortion opponents and only 8 mentioning abortion proponents. That 8, however, is misleadingly inflated, since 3 of them referred to Jocelyn Elders, Clinton’s Surgeon General, and 1 to a doctor arrested many times for performing abortions. Thus in the Post’s coverage outspoken opponents of abortion appear four times more often than outspoken proponents.
This bias is nicely revealed in a June 20, 2002, discussion of now Senator-elect Coleman from Minnesota, who is described “as a fiscal conservative but is not nearly as outspoken on social issues, although he is an abortion opponent.”
As I deconstruct this observation, it means either a) that it is odd to find an abortion opponent who is not outspoken on social issues in general, or b) that although he is not outspoken on social issues in general he is outspoken about abortion (since to be an opponent is to be outspoken). I think WaPo means “b.”
He should speak out and address this.
It’s the Silent Majority all over again; the Post assumes that everyone supports abortion at any time for any reason until proven otherwise.