Previously, I’ve identified gun control as one issue on which the Los Angeles Times is too biased to get even the basic facts right. Another such issue is, unsurprisingly, abortion. Today’s editorial on the Justice Department’s efforts to determine the medical necessity, or lack thereof, of dilation and extraction (a.k.a. partial birth abortion) is a prime example. Titled “Ashcroft’s Fear Tactic,” it utterly sidesteps the issue. The individuals in question have nothing to fear; the only “fear” here is that of the abortion lobby, which fears that the data being sought by the D.O.J. could ultimately prove that their claims of medical necessity are bogus.

Of all the moments when a patient consults with a doctor, few could be sadder than when a woman concludes she must end a pregnancy.

Doesn’t that just break your heart? You’d almost think that this whole “abortion” thing was about pregnant women eager to carry a child to term, only to learn shocking news from their doctors and conclude that they “must” end their pregnancies. Does this happen? Sure, sometimes. But that kind of situation is not the reason the federal government has banned partial birth abortion, nor even why the State of California has banned late term abortion altogether. The concern is primarily with elective late term abortions, which pro-abortion advocates claim do not exist. My guess is that nine times out of ten, we are talking about women who concludes, independently of any consultation with a doctor, that she wants to end her pregnancy. Then again, you probably couldn’t care less what my guess is; you’d rather see data. Thanks to the abortion lobby, you can’t, and neither can I, so all either of us can do is to guess.

Sadder still is when this occurs after the first trimester, and it’s true that one technique used in late-term abortions can be grim.

Once you get past the gratuitous sax and violins, you may notice that even while the Trainer grudgingly admits that partial birth abortion is a grim procedure, they still can’t bring themselves to mention it by name. Not “partial birth abortion,” not “dilation and extraction,” they couldn’t even find enough space to squeeze in the well-recognized abbreviation “D&X.” Even the Trainer’s usual sneer term, “so-called partial-birth abortion,” would have been better than nothing; at least that would have made it clear what they were talking about. Instead, they’ve declined to identify it at all.

Also note that by conceding that “one technique,” i.e. partial birth abortion, is grim, they falsely suggest that its alternative, dilation and evactuation (or D&X), is not. D&X effectively consists of vacuuming a baby’s brain out of his head, then removing its dismembered parts from the womb. Not at all grim, oh no. But all the nasty stuff take place inside the womb, without partially inducing birth, so it’s not makes it not a “partial-birth abortion.” But it is the alternative they are talking about, and it’s every bit as grim.

With anguished deliberation, the American people and the judiciary have decided that women should have the right to make a choice.

Silly me, I must have missed that anguished deliberation back in the 1970s, when we all got together as The American People (TM) and voted to give women an unfettered right to kill fetuses at every stage of pregnancy, with no questions asked. I certainly missed the follow up vote in which we further voted to give them a right to prevent the government from even knowing how many such abortions took place every year, or under what circumstances. Even Roe v. Wade didn’t go nearly that far. At most, a 5-4 majority in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000) held that to be constitutional, a partial birth abortion ban must allow abortions when they are medically necessary. So now that U.S. government is collecting data to determine whether or not it is in fact necessary. In response, the abortion lobby says “of course it’s sometimes necessary, trust us.” The Trainer staff trust them, but some of us commoners don’t.

That discussions and records about abortion should remain confidential would seem evident. So why can’t Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft get this?

Ashcroft does get this, of course, which is why he’s asking for aggregated statistical data, not sensitive medical information on any given, identifiable patient. The Trainer knows this. They also know that the underlying data could ultimately prove damning to pro-abortion purists. Most of all, they know that “don’t reveal this data because it might not help our side of the debate” is not a very convincing argument, so instead they invoke the “privacy” of women who do not stand to be identified anyway.

Justice Department lawyers have marched into court demanding that doctors and hospitals in Los Angeles, San Diego and four other cities hand over the medical records of hundreds of women who have undergone abortions