Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbsck!cbscc!pmd From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: The Silent Scream Revisted Message-ID: <5172@cbscc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 19-Apr-85 22:04:18 EST Article-I.D.: cbscc.5172 Posted: Fri Apr 19 22:04:18 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Apr-85 08:00:41 EST References: <377@ptsfc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus Lines: 212 Keywords: I watched the news today. (Oh, booooy.) From Rod Williams: >The following article is reprinted from The New Republic (4/8/85): > > The abortion debate has been heavily influenced by the pro-life > movie "The Silent Scream". Now it turns out that the film's > evidence is flawed. "CBS Morning News" showed the sonogram last > week to five qualified obstetricians. They all denied that a > 12-week-old fetus could feel pain, react to the intrusion of > the suction tube, or open its mouth to "scream." Their most > significant point was that, when the film claims the fetus is > starting to struggle, it is actually only showing the speeding > up of the film. One of the doctors said: "Any of us could show > you the same image in a fetus who is not being aborted." If the > anti-abortion case was as clear-cut as its publicists say, they > wouldn't have to distort the evidence to make their point. >-- Apparently there was a great deal of "distortion of evidence" going on on the part of "CBS Morning News" with regard to its discussion of "The Silent Scream". Oh my, who *are* we to believe? Dr. Bernard Nathanson, producer of the film, recently sent a letter to CBS detailing his objections to their presentation of a discussion on the film. The letter was reprinted in the Apr. 11 NRL News. CBS Morning News set up a debate between *two* panels to discuss the merits of the film. The one panel of five experts (spoken of above) were designated as "uninvolved in the abortion controversy". Of the other panel, it was emphasized (at least 3 times) that they consisted of "three experts whose names were provided to us by the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee" (CBS *asked* the NRLC for the names). The remarks of the panel of five "neutral" experts (all unrelenting critics of the film) were aired on the prime time morning segment of the news. Airing of the comments of the other panel was delayed until a later segment during a time that most people were at work or on their way there. Nathanson found a few problems with the designation of the other panel as being neutral: CBS conceded that its "neutral" panel of experts was proposed--at least in part--by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Is the ACOG "uninvolved in the abortion controversy"? Nathanson goes on to point out that, ... the ACOG has an umblemished record of abortion advocacy. It supplied pro-abortion *amicus curiae* briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court as far back as the *Row v. Wade* case in 1973, and most recently in the *Akron* case of 1983. It is on record as opposing restrictions on fetal research. Its president, Dr. George Ryan, testified against the Human Life Bill in 1981 and in the same year testified against the proposed Hatch amendment... I am not conversant with the details of the background and politics of all five members of the soi-disant "neutral" panel that CBS recruited for that segment. However, one member--Dr. Richard Berkowitz--is an old acquaintance, indeed a former employee. Dr. Berkowitz worked under my direction at CRASH (Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, at the time the largest abortion clinic in the world) for a number of months, moonlighting at that facility while participating in a residency program in obstetrics and gynecology at a major teaching hospital in New York City. Not involved in the abortion controversy? The remainder of the letter reveals more of Nathanson's insights as to the lengths that some will go to discredit the film. I note with some amusement that the national Planned Parenthood organization has assembled six more presumably equally "neutral" experts to make a rebuttal film countering "The Silent Scream". Prominent on the list are the names of two more Nathanson alumni: one Dr. William Rashbaum who was already diligently at work in the abortion mines of CRASH when I took over as director, and one Dr. Ming-Ning Yeh whom I myself recruited and who labored for me conscientiously for more than a year. Might I suggest that in the future that CBS and other conscription agencies ask their "neutral" experts to sign a disclosure statement to the effect that they are not now nor have they ever been Nathanson alumni? Too embarrassing, really. In the segment in question there was a dismaying amount of purposless athetoid niggling about the size of the unborn on the television screen, the speed of the tape and a few other equally monumental pendantries. Any school child can tell you that if an image is captured on a four inch screen (the size of the realtime ultra- sound imaging device we used), then transferred to a twenty-one inch television box, the image will appear five times larger than it actually is--no deceit intended. ... As for the apparent speeding up of the tape following the thirty second clip in slow motion (slowed only to allow a more careful study of the child's readtions at that point in the procedure) was I required to continue the remainder of the tape in slow motion merely to stave off the fatuous accusation that I was somehow rigging the play? CBS correctly informed its viewers that I was out of the country when this show was aired (had they waited until I returned, I could have responded to these carpings face- to-face). But in a deeply disappoing exhibition of journalistic irresponsibility CBS read only a carefully selected portion of the written statement I had prepared before I left. In a curious way I can understand (but not forgive) this brazen act of censorship. To have read my full statement would have cowed their "neutral" experts into submissive silence and the show would have perished of its own weight. The deleted portion of the statement contained an affidavit provided by Dr. Ian Donald, former Regius Professor of Obstetrics at the University of Glasgow, inventor of ultrasound, and, indisputibly the world's leading authority on its use and interpretation. In a sworn statement dated February 23, 1985 Dr. Donald declared: I the undersigned Ian Donald ... having had experience in the development and exploitation of diagnostic ultrasound from 1955 onwards until 1981, the last four years of which were much taken up with filming fetal activity at various stages of pregnancy ... have now studied Dr. Nathanson's videotape film not less than four times and affirm that I am of the opinion that the fetal activities depicted by the ultrasound realtime scanning in this film are not faked, nor the result of artifact, intentional or otherwise. After discarding the political banalities, after the ideologic baggage, after picking one's way thorugh all the scientific dithering and waffing ... there are only four short questions of quintessential interest here: Is this a realtime ultrasound film? Is this a human unborn child on the screen? Is this a realtime ultrasound record of an abortion of a human unborn child? At the conclusion of the film, as the life of the child been obliterated, the body having been torn from the head and the head crushed and removed in pieces? Even our "neutral" experts will agree--albeit grudgingly--that the collective answer to these questions is "yes". One final question is in order: Is the brutal act depicted in this film-- the deliberate unappealable destruction of a tiny defensless human being--compatible with the declared moral certitudes of a civilized society? ... In an editorial in the March 14 issue of NRL News, Dave Andrusko detailed the NRLC's objections to the CBS presentation. An excerpt: Not only were the critics given nearly twice as much air time as supporters (eleven vs. six minutes), CBS also insisted that the defenders all had to be in CBS' New York studios bright and early Monday morning [Mar. 4, the day of the newscast]; i.e. they could not go to their local CBS affiliates. [The previous paragraph pointed out that the remarks of the film's opponents were taped beforhand. -pmd] This meant that they had to fly to New York Sunday night. As it happens, in exchange for the hassle, NRLC was promised that proponents would receive at least twice as much air time as the critics. In fact, as noted, they barely got half. In addition, the film clip featuring opponents of "The Silent Scream" aired between 8 and 8:30 am EST; the (live) comments of the supporters between 8:30 and 9 am. ... As any involved in morning television can tell you, the 8 - 8:30 morning news slot is the best watched. After 8:30 (which is 7:30 Central Standard Time), many viewers are on their way to work and the numbers watching drop sharply. ... There was more than enough time to run the panels back-to-back in the first half hour, especially when one sees how little time was devoted to those who found "The Silent Scream" accurate. Why weren't they run sequentially? Moreover, why did [Bill] Kurtis [the program host] read a news story at the 8:30 newsbreak, summarizing the critics remarks as follows: "The accuracy of the controversial anti-abortion film, *The Silent Scream*, is being challenged. A panel of experts on fetal development say that the ultrasound used in the film does not show a fetus in pain duing an abortion as the film makers claim. The panel, assembled by CBS Morning News, also says the film was magnified and speeded up in a misleading way." If they were going to do an 8:30 news item, all the more reason to have had *both* panels make their case in the first half hour and summarize *both* their remarks. In fact, NRLC had been assured that the panels *would* run next to each other. But, so what? We were also told proponents would be given not just equal time but double time to rebut the butters. (For that matter, CBS *never* explicitly said that the opinions of the second panel would challenge those of the first panel!) Maybe we could get someone from CBS out here to clear up this misunderstanding (before Jesse Helms does :-) )? -- Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd