Just (Ignore) the Facts, Ma’am: Jill Stanek to Write for Ultra-Right Outlets

In further evidence of the erosion of truth and fact in conservative journalism, two ultra-right websites have recently added anti-choice--and anti-fact--activist Jill Stanek as a contributing blogger.

In further evidence of the erosion of truth and fact in conservative journalism, Media Matters for America reports that two ultra-right websites, Tea Party enthusiast Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism and the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters have recently added anti-choice–and anti-fact–activist Jill Stanek as a contributing blogger.

Stanek, notes Media Matters, "has a history of inflammatory and dubious claims; in her inaugural NewsBusters post, however, she admits that she’s "not a student of" media analysis."

Stanek’s views on most things having to do with women’s essential human rights are likely well-known to our regular readers, as is her incendiary and dangerous targeting of physicians who provide abortions. Soon after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, for example, at a time of increasing violence against providers nationwide, Stanek published photos of the clinic of Dr. Leroy Carhart on her website, while even more openly radical groups were calling for violence against him.

But for those who’d like the full picture, Media Matters points out the following on Stanek:

Stanek’s
statements have undermined her credibility.
In August 2008,
Media Matters for America detailed
Stanek’s numerous inflammatory statements, such as her suggestion that domestic
violence is acceptable against women who have abortions, her support of
billboards in Tanzania with the words "Faithful Condom User" next to a picture
of a large skeleton, and her citation of a report that "aborted fetuses are much
sought after delicacies" in China to which she added, "I think this stuff is
happening."

Stanek’s
claims about abandoned fetuses not substantiated by state
investigation.
During the 2008
presidential campaign, Stanek was presented as a former nurse who claimed that
babies that were born despite attempted abortions were abandoned without
treatment in the Illinois hospital where she worked, including
in a soiled utility room. However, the Illinois Department of Public Health
reportedly said that the alleged conduct, if proved, would have constituted
"violations of existing law" but that it could not
substantiate
the allegation.

Stanek
has continued to make inflammatory
and
misleading
claims:

  • Stanek:
    America "elected a barbarian as
    president."
    In a November 6, 2008,
    WorldNetDaily column, Stanek responded to the election of Barack Obama as
    president by stating that "we are fooling ourselves if we think the United
    States is still a Christian nation. Its people
    just elected a barbarian as president."

  • Stanek:
    Obama election a sign God is "finally turning America
    over to judgment."
    In a November 12,
    2008, WND column, Stanek wrote that she "could only see impending doom"
    following Obama’s election, adding:

There is no way God
would have allowed Barack Obama to become president were He not finally turning
America over to judgment, to whatever great or lesser extent that will
be.

I sat in my mother’s
church and was surprised to feel anger when the worship leader smiled and sang
the same songs as ever, as if life hadn’t drastically changed the week before,
as if the Church itself wasn’t indicted by Obama’s election.

  • Stanek lamented that Tiller’s killer wasn’t allowed to mount "necessity"
    defense.
    In a February
    3 column, Stanek stated that
    while she had "a problem with Scott Roeder murdering" abortion doctor George
    Tiller, she also stated that Roeder was not allowed to mount a "necessity"
    defense, based on Roeder’s "honest belief that circumstances existed that
    justify deadly force," because it is "is anathema to both pro-aborts and the
    U.S. legal system thanks to abortion," adding, "Clearly Roeder had a problem
    with Tiller’s continued avoidance of justice."

  • Stanek’s stance
    criticized by fellow anti-abortion activist as "a license to
    kill."
    In a February 8 WND column, Gregg Cunningham, executive director of the
    anti-abortion Center For Bio-Ethical Reform, responded to Stanek’s
    column:

Regarding the murder
of abortionist George Tiller, she argues essentially that Scott Roeder’s jury
should have been allowed to find that stalking, ambushing and blowing out the
doctor’s brains wasn’t murder because George Tiller was an abortionist. Jill
emphasizes that she is personally opposed to vigilante assassinations. She says
that she might not have voted to reduce Scott Roeder’s offense to manslaughter
had she been given that option as his juror. But she then asserts that jurors
should be permitted to consider the horror of abortion as a mitigating
circumstance when deciding the fates of those who kill abortionists. This
chilling, "eye-for-an-eye" ethic is difficult to distinguish from the barbaric
apologetic used by the "Army of God" anarchists who cheer on sociopaths such as
Scott Roeder. It is a license to kill.

  • Stanek
    promoted link between abortion and breast cancer, despite evidence to the
    contrary.
    In a March 12, 2009,
    blog
    post
    on her personal website, Stanek referenced
    "the obvious
    and proven link between abortion and breast cancer." In fact, the National
    Cancer Institute held a 2003 workshop
    featuring "over 100 of the
    world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk," which
    "concluded that having
    an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of
    developing breast cancer." NCI has maintained its stance
    that "the evidence overall still does not support early termination of pregnancy
    as a cause of breast cancer."