A recent New York Times article on the Stupak Amendment has gotten it dangerously wrong.  As Jodi Jacobson points out in her discerning post at RH Reality Check, Katherine Q. Seelye misrepresents the Amendment’s full effect on reproductive freedom.

Seelye’s article is founded on the myth that Stupak primarily impacts federal subsidies for abortion, when this is consistently shown to be false.   In actuality, the amendment will impact those who don’t receive subsidies and who use their own money to buy insurance, along with millions of small-business employees.  Moreover, Seelye claims that only 13 percent of annual abortion cases are billed to insurance companies each year, using a Guttmacher Institute statistic that, as Jacobson points out, Guttmacher himself has declared misleading.

Seelye also describes the struggle of pro-choice lawmakers to fight Stupak while remembering “that the bill seeks to expand health coverage to millions…and to end discriminatory insurance practices” against women.  By framing the conflict in this way, Seelye adopts the reasoning of anti-abortion activists who seek to pacify women by claiming the health care bill makes great strides in their favor.  Stupak, so their argument goes, is a drop in the bucket.

While it may not have been intentional, Seelye’s careless misuse of data and positioning of the issue within what should be an unbiased representation of the legislation is not only irresponsible but dangerous. The only way to effectively combat Stupak is to accurately characterize its impact and educate the public about its dangers.