On July 14, 2022 Zebra Fact Check sent AP Fact Check a correction/retraction request regarding its fact check “Posts falsely claim abortion is never medically necessary” from July 11, 2022.
Dear AP Fact Check,
I have earnestly tried to contact the writer and an editor at AP Fact Check before lodging this correction request. Unfortunately, AP asks readers to make that contact without providing contact details. Lacking email address information, I attempted that on Twitter with no results. You’ll be aware I asked yesterday for better contact information and received no reply.
Your July 11, 2022 fact check “Posts falsely claim abortion is never medically necessary” bases its conclusion squarely on a fallacy of equivocation.
The traditional legal definition of “abortion” includes the idea that the procedure intentionally brings about the death of the fetus. Though your fact check fails to specifically identify its source for the claim, that definition is overpoweringly common for what you call “anti-abortion” groups.
Your fact check simply ignores the legal definition as though it does not exist and substitutes a definition so ambiguous and broad that we could use it to count live cesarian birth as an abortion (”abortion — meaning the termination of a pregnancy”).
This calls for a do-over.
You’re allowed to point out that abortion can be medically necessary under absurdly broad definitions of “abortion,” but a fact checker is responsible for ensuring that claims do not get taken out of context. Your fact check strongly encourages readers to take the original claim out of context.
The “pro-lifers” are saying they oppose procedures that deliberately deprive human embryos or fetuses of life. By calling them “pro-abortion” [sic] and insisting on defining abortion as merely ending a pregnancy for any reason you misrepresent a large group of people.
To fact check the claim in context, try to find an example where an “abortion” treatment needs to intentionally kill the embryo/fetus in order to accomplish a beneficial therapeutic end.
And you really should do something to improve the way you cite your sources. If an anti-abortion nonprofit made a claim, name names if you can’t provide a URL.
I have a fact check article written about your fact check. You’re invited to provide comment justifying your actions which I will address whether before or after publication. As I am a journalist, any reply is on the record unless you specify otherwise.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.