THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.

It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,” a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth” was different.

Please take some time over the holiday to read through the entire column. It's not very often that anyone affiliated with the New York Times will admit that the paper did something wrong--or that any of us right wing nut jobs could ever be right about anything. Mr. Calame later writes:

Complaints about the article began arriving at the paper after an anti-abortion Web site, LifeSiteNews.com, reported on Nov. 27 that the court had found that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy ended with a full-term live birth. The headline: “New York Times Caught in Abortion-Promoting Whopper — Infanticide Portrayed as Abortion.” Seizing on the misleading presentation of the article’s only example of a 30-year jail sentence for an abortion, the site urged viewers to complain to the publisher and the president of The Times. A few came to me.

And later still:

I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the publisher bring the court’s findings to the attention of those readers who received the “no reason to doubt” response, or that a correction be published. The latest word from the standards editor: “No, I’m not ready to do that, nor to order up a correction or Editors’ Note at this point.”

Again, please just take the time to read the whole article. And if you have a few more minutes to spare, contact Byron Calame to thank him for writing this important piece.

Email:
public@nytimes.com

• I. M. Neiman writes that killing Saddam was the pro-life thing to do. A bold statement indeed, but I might have to agree... I've always been very anti-death penalty, but with a situation like this, it's hard to make a case for keeping Saddam alive.

• Mike asks: Could Saddam be a martyr?

• BETTER THAN PAY-PER-VIEW! Biga has three video clips. (Not recommended for the faint of heart.)

• "A well hung dictator." I'm still laughing.

• Scott Ott has located a weapon of mass destruction!

• Flagwaver writes: "All day yesterday I watched news outlets trying to determine if Saddam had been given up to Iraqi custody, and if so should the Americans have done so. Then there were the reports about how his trial was conducted and how his appeals were denied, as if that really mattered!  And then there were the 'This is going to cause a spike in violence' stories that the networks started to run. So what if a spike in violence comes at the death of Saddam; we are in a war, and violence is a part of war. But you know the media...they just don't get that part of the whole war situation."

• Dawnsblood has a link to an eyewitness account.

• Love to critique the mainstream media? Look no further than Publius' Forum.

Blogs4Life Summary

Who: Pro-life bloggers

What: The second annual conference dedicated to advancing the pro-life message via weblog technology.

When: Monday, January 22, 2007, at 9:00 am

Where: Family Research Council, 801 G. Street, NW * Washington, DC 20001

RSVP: online at www.blogs4life.com (click on Register)

Getting rid of earmarks gets all the more difficult when the folks back home go putting elected representatives' names on buildings. It isn't like Sen. Christopher Bond donated the millions of dollars that got his name placed on the University of Missouri-Columbia's new life sciences center. Ditto Blunt and the new JVIC building.

But as soon as universities, cities, counties and other political bodies reward the earmark process by naming fancy edifices after politicians who know where the money is hidden, well, it just encourages the process to get worse.

Besides rewarding politicians for bad spending practices, renaming buildings after them while they're still in office is simply imprudent. Look at the long list of recently disgraced lawmakers and ask yourselves: Would you want your public building named after Mark Foley, or Randy "Duke" Cunningham or Bob Ney?