Breda O'Brien: Media not doing its job properly when covering abortion

In a relatively rare event this week, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland upheld complaints (though only in part) about abortion coverage.

The complaints concerned a full day of programmes featuring the 2018 abortion referendum on Newstalk radio last December.

Among the complaints were allegations that the coverage was one-sided, unnecessarily adversarial towards pro-life people, and provided statistical data with no supporting evidence (for example, claims that only 2 per cent of women have regretted an abortion).

There were also complaints that presenters breached the BAI Code, which requires that current affairs content, including matters that are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned and that the broadcast matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of the broadcaster’s own views.

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Newstalk claimed that as the complaints related to a discussion of a past event, the requirements for fairness and objectivity may not even apply, but if they did, denied “that any views were presented in a way that pursued an agenda or advocated a partisan position on behalf of the broadcaster”.

The BAI committee noted that Newstalk also covered the upcoming three-year review of the abortion legislation and therefore, the rules concerning fairness and objectivity did apply. It found that the presenters of two programmes, Newstalk Breakfast and The Hard Shoulder “expressed their own views on the subject such that a partisan position was advocated”. They noted comments by The Hard Shoulder presenter such as: “Do you envisage that you’re going to have another battle on your hands to get it [abortion law] where it should be or get it where, actually, those of us who voted in favour feel it already is?” The Hard Shoulder presenter also commented, “there is still a lot more work to be done” and at the end of the interview said, “and the job isn’t done yet, folks”.

No other aspect of the complaints was upheld. Presenters will conclude that the only thing likely to get them into trouble is an explicit expression of their own point of view.

Complaints about robust questioning of pro-lifers versus soft or even approving interviews of pro-choice people, to my knowledge, are never upheld. (I would welcome correction on this point.)

There are also problems with what is not covered, or not analysed in sufficient depth, and not just in broadcast media. Take some recent examples, such as the coverage of Irish abortion figures, the way that abortion is prioritised by the health service, and the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) (Foetal Pain Relief) Bill. (The latter was sponsored by a group of 11 TDs proposing that the unborn child be given pain relief during late-term abortions.) And there is also the ongoing failure to provide a truly independent inquiry into the wrongful abortion of baby Christopher Kiely, even though the consultants, hospital and clinic admitted liability.

The 2020 abortion figures coverage suggests that there had been a slight decrease in abortion. This parrots the Department of Health's press release, which states that there were 6,577 abortions in 2020 which "represents a slight decrease [since] ...2019" when there were 6,666 notifications.

Nowhere does the release highlight the significant decrease in births in 2020, with 60,173 registered births in 2019 as opposed to 55,959 births in 2020. There was extensive media coverage of the lower birthrate. But there was no joining of the dots to show that the number of abortions per registered birth was higher in 2020.

The media's attitude is either indifference or "nothing to see here, move right along". Without TDs such as Carol Nolan, we would know even less. She established that €2.9 million was spent on abortion up to nine weeks in 2019. Meanwhile, the entire budget in 2019 for the National Women and Infants Health Programme, designed to protect women and babies, was only €3.1 million.

In a recent feature on the future of our healthcare system, Dr Cliona Murphy, chairwoman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says that during the pandemic, "gynaecology care suffered with many elective clinics and surgeries cancelled". (The HSE did protect surgeries for cancer.) However, she also says that "abortion care could have been vulnerable in 2020 but HSE support ensured no services were cut".

Again, there is no interrogation of these priorities. Necessary surgeries for women can be cancelled but abortion must not be touched even though 98 per cent of abortions are not on health grounds.

The whole thrust now by powerful lobby groups is to loosen restrictions. For example, the National Women's Council, in a report funded by the US-based Center for Reproductive Health, calls for the abolition of the three-day waiting period and the complete decriminalisation of abortion. Again, Nolan established in September 2020 that 870 women in 2019 who made initial contact with a GP did not continue with the abortion – those three days facilitated women to make a more informed choice. The three-day waiting period is doing its job.

As for the Foetal Pain Relief Bill, aside from a few brief articles, the question of humane treatment of the unborn child in late-term abortion has been virtually ignored. A balanced media would interrogate all sides equally when it comes to matters of life and death. Instead, it often just parrots the prevailing popular line.