Fox “news”-side program repeatedly hosts White House official to lie about abortion
Written by Chenay Arberry & Julie Tulbert
Published
Fox News has alleged that programs like America's Newsroom exist apart from the network’s “opinion” shows. However, this so-called “news” program has frequently hosted White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, who has used the opportunity to push the same inaccurate right-wing media myth about the Democratic Party’s support for abortion access that has been a staple of the network’s “opinion” shows all year.
Right-wing media often push the myth that abortions later in pregnancy are the same as “infanticide” -- an inaccurate allegation which has already been debunked as an outright lie. Throughout numerous appearances on America's Newsroom, Gidley has repeated the same dangerous and sensationalized anti-abortion rhetoric without any pushback or additional questions about his claims from the program’s anchors, Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith. For example, during a March 14 appearance Gidley claimed Democrats want babies to be “born and then killed outside the womb” as “the norm.”
Less than a month later, Gidley appeared again and used this anti-abortion misinformation to deflect from a conversation about the Mueller investigation into Russian election interference. Instead, Gidley decried Democrats’ alleged support for “killing babies after they’re born.”
During the April 4 edition of America's Newsroom, Gidley once more relied on these dangerous right-wing media talking points about later abortions, inaccurately claiming that Democrats support an “agenda of infanticide.”
Gidley repeated similar sentiments during the July 12 and 26 editions of America's Newsroom -- again using misinformation about abortion to change the topic of conversation to Democrats’ alleged extremism and supposedly “radical agenda.”
Despite Gidley’s assertions, right-wing media claims of “infanticide” have no basis in the reality of abortion care, let alone as a part of the Democratic Party’s platform. Gidley’s promotion of the myth is straight out of the same playbook used by right-wing media and conservative politicians -- including President Donald Trump -- to use anti-abortion misinformation to allege that Democrats are too “extreme” ahead of the 2020 elections.
While Fox News may claim America’s Newsroom is a “straight news” program, allowing Gidley to promote the same dangerous lies about “infanticide” popular on the network’s “opinion” shows once again that there is no difference between Fox’s so-called “news” and “opinion” programming when it comes to anti-abortion misinformation.