Media Matters For America has the best (and most accurate) headline on this!
Right-wing media are flat-out lying about later abortions being "infanticide"
Democrats have recently pushed measures at the state level to protect or expand abortion access. Further, it should be noted that the purpose of these measures at a state level is to protect reproductive rights from the possibility of Roe v. Wade being over-turned by Trump’s supreme court.
On January 22, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Reproductive Health Act, changing a pre-Roe v. Wade state law that criminalized abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy to now allow abortions “when the fetus is not viable or a woman’s health is at risk” with the consent of a doctor. Legislators in Virginia also introduced a bill in January that would protect abortion rights by eliminating some restrictions on abortion care, including one currently requiring three doctors to consent for a patient’s third-trimester abortion. In addition, legislators in Rhode Island have introduced two bills that would protect abortion access to the point of viability. [New York magazine, 1/23/19; The Post-Standard, 1/22/19; Richmond Times-Dispatch, 1/30/19; WPRI.com, 1/29/19]
Despite the right-wing media’s portrayal, these bills do not allow “infanticide.”
As Forbes’ Tara Haelle explained in 2016, people who need later abortions “are seeking them before a pregnancy reaches full term but often and unfortunately after they have discovered in the second or third trimester some problem with the fetus or danger to the mother.” Later abortions, although often medically necessary, are extremely rare: Slightly more than 1 percent of all abortions are performed past the 21-week mark. [The New York Times, 10/20/16; Media Matters, 1/29/191/30/19, 1/30/19; Forbes, 10/20/16; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed 1/31/19]
Just in the last week, Fox hosts and guests have used the word “infanticide”35 times in discussions of the bills. Facts be damned!
Hannity: “If someone says hours before, ‘Oh, I'm having emotional second thoughts,’ and a doctor says, ‘OK,’ then they're allowed to commit infanticide?”
Hannity: “You can get an abortion in the seventh month of pregnancy, the eighth month of pregnancy, and the ninth month of pregnancy. That would be called infanticide.”
Tucker Carlson: What Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was talking about “used to be called infanticide. Not rhetorically, but literally infanticide. Taking the life of a child who is breathing.”
Note how Tucker further blows his own fallacious argument with the “breathing” bit.
Laura Ingraham: The Democratic Party is promoting “full-on embrace of infanticide.”
Numerous other Faux Newz bloviators toe the party line via their very best efforts to stir outrage among their brainless, scientifically ignorant viewers. See link below for more names and quotes.
Rausch couldn’t be left out of the rightwing “fun,” so he had to join in:
Rush Limbaugh: President Donald Trump should use his State of the Union speech to “to talk about the infanticide laws that just passed in New York.”
Even loud-mouthed imbecile Sarah Palin couldn’t pass up a chance to get her name out there again:
Sarah Palin: “State governments [are] sanctioning infanticide” and “#deathpanels” will be “accepted next.”
There’s lots more here with excellent detail and cites:
Right-wing media are flat-out lying about later abortions being "infanticide"