Just a quick note on something I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. I’m not sure how many of you have noticed, but I’m experimenting with refusing to repeat lies—especially Donald Trump’s—when I respond to them.
This morning, for example, I posted a chart showing the number of abortions by week of pregnancy. Obviously I didn’t do this out of the blue. I did it in response to Trump’s absurd statement at a Wisconsin rally that Democrats favor infanticide: “The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.” This, of course, is Trump’s hyperbolic version of the right-wing’s general notion that liberals favor abortion right up to the moment of birth.
The truth is that although many liberals prefer to see no non-medical restrictions on abortion, 91 percent of all abortions are performed in the first trimester and something like 99.9 percent of abortions are performed in the first two trimesters.
Question: what do you all think of this experiment? Should I keep refusing to give lies more attention? Or would you prefer to know exactly which lies I’m responding to?
UPDATE: And here’s the response to my mini-survey:
