On June 27, 2022, Zebra Fact Check sent a correction request to PolitiFact via truthometer@politifact.com. PolitiFact issued a “Mostly True” rating for President Biden’s claim that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision made the United States “an outlier among developed nations in the world.” We explained to PolitiFact it used an unrealistic approach to defining “developed nations” that was inconsistent with its past attempts to identify “developed nations.” We also identified a misleading use of the term “Great Britain.”
We received PolitiFact’s standard reply in response.
Dear Truth-O-Meter,
Your June 24, 2022 fact check of President Biden was misleading and in need of correction/revision.
1) On the central issue of the fact check, whether the Supreme Court turned the United States into “an outlier among developed nations in the world,” the fact check absurdly narrows “developed nations in the world” to the G7. So, apart from the United States, the fact checkers expect us to believe there are six developed nations in the world. Seriously?
That’s out-of-step with PolitiFact’s historical treatment of the phrase “developed nations.”
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/aug/29/elizabeth-warren/warren-says-us-broadband-lags-compared-other-natio/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/28/jennifer-boysko/us-only-industrialized-nation-no-paid-family-leave/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/nov/01/david-cicilline/david-cicilline-says-us-has-third-lowest-minimum-w/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/feb/09/keith-ellison/keith-ellison-says-americans-work-way-more-others/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/oct/18/donald-trump/once-again-trump-overstates-us-tax-ranking/
2) Assuming we buy PolitiFact’s absurdly narrow pool of “developed nations,” the fact check contains significant error. It lists “Great Britain” as a G7 nation, and therefore supposed[ly] an example of a developed nation with “laws or court rulings that provide for abortion access on a national basis.” But “Great Britain” typically refers to the regions located on the main British isle, England, Scotland and Wales. The British Isles as included in the G7 includes Northern Ireland, known as the United Kingdom (”United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”). No U.K. law or court case extends abortion rights to the whole of the U.K. Northern Ireland was coerced into permitting legal abortion only in 2019 through a special law directed toward that end. PolitiFact’s narrative offers readers a false account of the homogeneity of U.K. abortion law.
3) Cherry-picking additional nations such as China, Netherlands, New Zealand, Argentina, Colombia, Australia and Iceland does not establish the United States as any kind of “outlier” (did anybody at PolitiFact even bother to look up the word?). Ever heard of Poland? Malta? The fact check should have settled on a defensible definition of “developed nation,” established the set of nations meeting that definition and then looked at abortion policy in those nations to see if the United States counted as an outlier, and not a mere minority, in terms of policy.
Basing the ruling on whether the policy stems from central government action can only establish the United States as an outlier in terms of its federalist system reserving the issue for the states. Does your fact check mention “federalism”? It does not.
Do better.
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Thanks,
PolitiFact team