Media Caught Purposefully Skewing Language To Support Abortion: The media and news outlets unfortunately often get caught sharing fake news. Fake facts on abortion certainly have been passed around recently, especially by the Left.  Tune in now to learn more.

Air Date: 06/19/2019

Guest: Dave Weldon

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we”€™re talking about today”€™s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always doing that from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker and President of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislators, national speaker, and author.

You can visit us at WallBuildersLive.com to find out more. That’s also where you can make that donation. Click on the donate button.

As a listener supported program, as a listener, you help us by supporting us financially and it makes it possible for us to bring you these great interviews, like we’ve got today, and all of our other programs and training programs as well.

Dr. Dave Weldon will be with us later in the program, former Congressman and a good friend of WallBuilders. He’s gonna be talking about this new language of the media, and the way that they frame issues instead of just reporting what the issue is. They purposely frame issues by changing literally the words to favor one side or the other.

Tim:

And to my recollection, Dave Weldon, doesn’t he have some kind of medical background?

David:

Dave Weldon was a U.S. Congressman who was a physician in Congress, who had dealt with all of these kinds of issues as a medical professional. He was considered one of the stronger medical researchers that we had in Congress who kept up with medical research and new medical innovations, etc..

He is an amazing guy.

Some More Equal than Others?

Tim:

I bring that up because what we’re addressing is how NPR has suggested we should change the way we describe medical procedures to make people not be averse to what’s actually happening.

So you have a medical professional, who happened to be a Congressman. He’s gonna be able to address that.

But it’s interesting. We are in a culture where words are used as tools to strategically shape the way people think about something, where H.R. 5 was something that came out of the House. It was the Equality Act, because who”€™s not in favor of equality?

We want equality, we all should be equal. Equality is something that’s important. The problem is they didn’t believe in equality for all.

It was almost like some people were more equal than others.

Rick:

That sounds familiar!

David:

That, “€œSome people more equal than others,”€ actually is a line that comes out of a famous book and that book as a 1945 book by George Orwell, called Animal Farm and what he did was kind of—and I don’t know, maybe call it a parody, or allegory, where he looked at the Russian Revolution of 1917, which is what took Russia into becoming a communist nation under Stalin.

He looked at the progression of how they went from being a free nation to a communist nation, and how Stalin got into power.

He did it by having a coup happen on a farm. There’s this farm, all sorts of animals are there and all getting along, and there’s a lot of wisdom with the older animals, and suddenly the pigs decide they’re going to take over the farm.

Animal Farm

The pigs eventually oust all the other animals. The pigs were Stalin and the Communists, and how they ousted everyone else. The spokesman for the pigs is a figure named Squealer. Squealer has this thing going on with the pigs were they”€™re helping to find who the enemies are, and who they have to throw out, and what animals they have to get rid of, etc.

Squealer, he was described by George Orwell as saying he could turn black into white.

What he would do is redefine words, give them new meanings, give them new twists to help justify what he wants to do.

He’s the one who said, “€œOh, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. We the pigs are more equal than everyone because, in communism, everyone is equal, and this is for the good of everyone, but the elite are more equal than others so we get benefits.”€

This the 1945 novel by George Orwell. Really not only reflected the communist change, it reflects what happens with secular progressives. It reflects what happened with socialists. There’s a lot of lessons there. But this thing of redefining words to helping your agenda move forward, this is one of the things you mentioned about NPR, that they were redefining terms, and what they’re doing is taking terms related to the abortion debate and they’re giving guidance to their reporters on, “€œDon’t use these words, use these words.”€

In other words, turn black into white, the Squealer tactic.

Right now we have 20 states that are in the midst of introducing and passing what are called Fetal Heartbeat Laws.

Trying to Sugar Coat Abortion

NPR says, “€œOpponents refer to it as a Fetal Heartbeat Law. That is their term. It needs to be attributed to them, abused, and put in quotation marks if printed. We should not simply say the laws are about whether a fetal heartbeat is detected.”€

Time out. That’s what the name of the law is, that’s the title the law, that’s what the law does.

“€œYeah, but that’s their term. We’re not going to report their terms.”€

No, it’s a legal term. It’s what’s in the law. That’s what the law is titled.

Here’s another on partial birth abortion, which has been a debate for 25 years. We have federal laws dealing with this, a number of states have partial birth abortion laws.

Here’s what NPR says, “€œUse the term intact dilation and extraction to describe the procedure,”€ so don’t call it a partial birth abortion, call it intact dilation extraction, describe the procedure or procedures known medically as intact dilation and extraction.

“€œOpponents call it partial birth abortion, partial birth is not a medical term and has no exact parallel in medical terminology, nor is it accurate to use the phrase late term abortion, for still conveys the sense that the fetus is viable when the abortion is performed.”€

Yeah, it conveys that sense because that’s what it is! I remember when this debate happened at the Republican Convention. I was on the platform committee, and at that point in time you had Rick Santorum and others passing the federal partial birth abortion ban, and two doctors from Hawaii on the Republican side said, “€œThis is nonsense. The term doesn’t exist. It’s not a medical term. Etc..”€

And Attorney General, Dan Lungren from California, got us all calm because we were going to jump those two doctors.

Legal and Medical Terms?

He said, “€œYou guys calm down. Let me handle this.”€

He let them go on, and on, and on, and said, “€œGuys. The problem you have is it is not a medical term, this is a legal term. This is the legal term we use to describe the procedure.”€

And he gave the exact discussion on what the procedure was.

He said, “€œPartial birth abortion is a legal term, not a medical term.”€

Well, NPR is taking sides rather than describing the law by title and what it is under the law.

They’re saying it’s not a medical term. They did the same thing with abortion clinics, it says, “€œNPR does not use the term abortion clinics. Instead, we say medical or health clinics.”€

They say, “€œUnborn Victims of Violence Act? We don’t use that term because that implies unborn is a baby inside the pregnant woman not a fetus.”€

And they say, “€œWe don’t use the phrase pro-life. We’ll use pro-abortion, but not pro-life. We use anti-abortion.”€

So they go through and redefine all these phrases. It is like squealer the pig. That’s why we thought it’d be interesting to get Dave Weldon on to talk about this, because he’s been in this stuff for a long time. He was one of the key guys in helping pass a number of the anti abortion laws that were passed in Congress.

And as a medical doctor, a medical researcher, medical professional, this was his strength when he was in Congress.

Rick:

Dr. Dave Weldon, our special guest today. Stay with us. We’ll be right back with WallBuilders Live.

Pastors Only Briefing Trip

Tim:

Hi, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders and I want to encourage all the pastors out there with a unique opportunity that we’re presenting it WallBuilders. We’re doing a special tour just for pastors that you can come and learn more about the spiritual heritage of our nation. Not just seeing the sights but understanding the significance of what they are and what they represent.

We get to go to the Capitol at night.  And, we get to see the spiritual heritage of our Founding Fathers, of who we are as a nation, where we came from. We bring in congressman that will tell you about current legislation, about our religious liberties  and freedom, and what’s going on in Washington, D.C.

If you’re a pastor or if you want to recommend your pastor for this trip, you can go to our website at www.WallBuilders.com. And, there’s a link that’s for scheduling.  If you click on that link there’s a section for pastor”€™s briefing. There’s more information about the dates, when it’s going, and how it’s going to happen. If you want to know more about our nation, our religious liberties, our freedom, our spiritual heritage, this is a trip you want to be a part of.

Dr. Dave Weldon

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Former Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon is back with us. Dr. Weldon, it’s good to have you back. Been too long.

Dr. Weldon:

Yeah, it really has. I’ve always enjoyed being on the program in the past. It’s one of the things I miss about my days in Congress: working with great ministries and great organizations like WallBuilders, and all that great work that David Barton and you all do. God bless you.

Rick:

Well, right back at you. We appreciate the work that you’ve done on the frontlines, in Congress and in other areas of the culture in your medical profession. It’s always been great to have you as an outspoken, pro-life leader, and also just helping to give some guidance on this issue as a physician. Right now there’s sort of this wave of legislation going on, and the way the media is reporting it is somewhat—not reporting it would be the more accurate way to say that. Even their terminology, they have their own guidelines for which words to use, and which words not to use, to make abortion sound less evil than it is. I guess they know they’re trying to skew perception on this issue.

Dr. Weldon:

They really are. They always have been. It dates back all the way to the early days when Christian people who believed in the truth of the Bible, that we”€™re all created in God’s image, and that we are all eternal creatures, and we do have the right to life along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

They try to redefine certain forms of human life, and call us fetuses or embryos, and delegitimize our God given right to the right to life.

Using Different Terms to Cover Things Up

We had the pro-life movement, and then the pro choice movement—whatever that’s supposed to mean. Everybody is pro-choice. You want to go to the restaurant of your choice. You want to use the dry cleaner of your choice.

Talk about killing an unborn baby is just a matter of choice is to demean the dignity of human life, in my opinion.

Now these bills that have come out has generated a whole bunch of additional politically correct maneuvering on the part of the left to try to cover up and put lipstick on the pig of what abortion really is.

Rick:

Yeah. And even the even the terminology on things like partial birth abortion. This memo with NPR essentially saying to their reporters, “€œMake sure you don’t say partial birth abortion! It’s a procedure known medically as intact dilation and extraction.”€

It sounds like a cover up to me. It’s not because they’re still using terms, but it’s certainly to average Joe it’s a cover up.

Dr: Weldon:

It is a cover up. They have been concealing from the American people the truth of abortion. I’ll never forget, early in my days when I started getting involved in the pro-life movement, I read a pamphlet that was written by an Episcopal priest who got all caught up in the pro-choice movement and was doing all kinds of things to basically give religious cover to abortion advocates.

Finally, one day, this man decided he would actually go in and actually see an abortion. And the turning point for him is that he was looking at the jar of the fetal parts that came through the suction machine, and he saw he a small little baby’s human hand to come down and splash.

An Abomination

He said to the doctor, “€œWhat was that?”€

And I guess he thought it was just a lump of tissue quote unquote, and the doctor cynically said to him, “€œWhat do you think it was?”€

And that man at that moment his eyes were opened and he became pro-life just like thousands of women. They think about having an abortion, they have an ultrasound and they actually see that is a baby, they refuse to do the abortion. They carry the pregnancy to term because they know.

Part calling it anything other than partial birth abortion is just an abomination, and it’s an attempt to deceive the American people.

Rick:

Yeah. No doubt about it. Right now with so many of these pieces of legislation in states across the country dealing with it, let’s talk specifically the the fetal heartbeat bills that are saying, “€œHey, no. No abortion once you know there’s a heartbeat!”€

NPR doesn’t want them saying fetal heartbeat. Their reporters, they want them to say, “€œAbout six weeks into pregnancy.”€

For us to try to use the term heartbeat, that’s literally what is identified under this legislation as when you can no longer have the abortions. It seems like that would be the right terminology.

Dr. Weldon:

I couldn’t agree with you more. One of the sad things you’re asked to do as a physician when you are working in the hospital is you get asked to pronounce people dead. Some people come into the hospital and die, and how do you do that? Well, you get a stethoscope out you put it on their chest. You listen for heartbeats, and you look at the EKG machine, and you look for a heartbeat. It’s quintessential essence of human life. It’s a beating heart.

NPR Tries to Confuse People with Wording

They don’t even want to talk about that, they don’t want you to know that most of these abortions are occurring when there’s a beating heart inside that fetus. They certainly don’t tell the young girls facing a desperate, unplanned pregnancy that, in fact, there”€™s brainwaves. There’s a beating heart.

“€œYou realize we’re about to kill a human being? Your child or your grandchild is about to be killed. It has a beating heart, has brain waves and moves around, sucks its thumb. We’re about to shred it with scalpels, and instruments, and suction devices.”€

So it’s a tragedy and that these people at NPR would engage in this kind of view station to just try to confuse the American people keep the truth from being known. It’s a disgrace.

Rick:

Yeah. It seems like, in the life movement, that’s been almost essential and necessary for the pro-abortion folks. That’s why I think these young people now when they see the 4D images and all the things of the last 20 years that technology has revealed about what’s going on in the womb, and what they have at certain ages with certain developments, and all those things. The more truth is known in advance, the more people become pro-life. So I think the other side has to keep a lid on that. They have to keep a false image if they want to keep the middle of the road folks voting for abortion instead of them seeing that it is life and moving over to our side and voting pro-life.

Dr. Weldon:

You’re absolutely right. You put your finger right on it, and the issue becomes, “€œAre they really reporting the news, or are they just trying to manipulate people?”€

Taxpayer Funded Disgrace

My own personal opinion is that there are a lot of people in the news business where that’s their agenda. It’s to manipulate what we think as opposed to let us know the facts. And thank God for programs like yours, where you’re actually letting people know the facts and the truth.

When you read a memo like that report from NPR, all you can do is hang your head and say, “€œGod help us.”€

This organization gets taxpayer funding to do what they do, which is another disgrace.

Rick:

No doubt, no doubt. Well, we appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on again. We miss you, and it’s good to have you back, and we look forward to getting you on again soon.

Dr. Weldon:

God bless you. Sure I’d love to do the program anytime. Give me a call. You have a wonderful day.

Rick:

God bless you as well. Stay with us folks. Be right back with David and Tim Barton on WallBuilders Live.

Patriots Academy

Rick:

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Moment From American History

This is Tim Barton with another moment from American history. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms, has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self protection.

Opponents argue that, “€œOnly the militia, the military, and law enforcement are to have and use firearms.”€ But, those who wrote the Second Amendment strenuously disagreed, including Founding Father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the declaration, a president of the Continental Congress, and one of those who actually framed the Second Amendment.

He declared, “€œTo preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”€

For more information about Richard Henry Lee and the history of the Second Amendment go to WallBuilders.com.

A Botched Education System

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! Thanks for staying with us, and thanks to former Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon for joining us today as well. We’re back with David and Tim Barton.

So guys, egregious changing of the language to present an image that is definitely lopsided for sure. And this is NPR. This is a taxpayer funded news organization.

Tim:

Well, it’s not surprising for us, because we think we know what a lot of taxpayer funding does and it’s not things that are beneficial for U.S. citizens. It’s you know one of the things we can talk about with education, where you look at what our tax dollars are going to and what we are teaching our kids and they come out with nontraditional views of human sexuality. They come out thinking America is a great evil. All of these things, we can go down the list that the lower academic levels of performance, and we’re underperforming as far as a nation when it comes to a comparison with other nations. Davdi:

I saw a study this week that more than half of Americans thought that the Civil War, which occurred in the 1860s, occurred before the American Revolution, which occurred in the 1770s, 90 years later.

But they thought it occurred before, and they thought that the war of 1812—more than half of Americans thought the war of 1812 occurred before the American Revolution, which is 50 years after. More than half of Americans thought that the emancipation proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln occurred before George Washington led troops into battle in the American Revolution which is 90 years later.

This is an Embarrassment

Tim:

That’s embarrassing on a lot of levels that people thought Abraham Lincoln came before George Washington. But here’s the point. Our tax dollars are funding things that it doesn’t make sense that we are we are paying for something this bad. NPR is one of those examples, that our tax dollars are funding people to do this re education campaign that we can’t acknowledge what abortion actually is that we can’t use the terminology of what is actually true we’re going to use a medical term, and use words that people don’t really really understand therefore maybe it’s not so offensive.

This is the reality of the culture we are dealing with, and as we’ve mentioned earlier when you look at Squealer the pig, and we’re going to change the meaning of words. This is what is happening in our culture, where we’re tolerance no longer means tolerance, love no longer means love, judgment no longer means judging.

We’ve changed so many words to be things that that’s not what the word actually means. It’s not what the intent actually was but now we’re seeing it even with the abortion issue.

And NPR is the one promoting this nonsense and this is this is a taxpayer funded organization.

And let me just—guys, let me ask you a question because you probably will know this answer and can give some direction to it. How many radio programs, apart from NPR, survive off of government funding? Because my understanding is most radio programs have to pay for themselves or they don’t exist. So how many how many radio programs get government funding?

How Many Stations Get Government Funding?

David:

Not many, but right now NPR, because of what happened 10-12 years ago with massive attempts to defund NPR by a number of Congressman. NPR finally started saying, “€œYou know what our bread is buttered only on one side and Congress has a side we better change this.”€

So now you see a lot of funding for NPR comes from foundations and large corporations who look at NPR, and say, “€œHey here’s a good way for us to get a tax write off let’s just give em a bunch of money.”€

NPR now is diversifying because they want to survive with their liberal view, but they existed and they were brought into existence solely by government. I would point to Voice of America as another entity that is solely government funded, but it is a pro-American entity. It exists primarily overseas, promoting America and other nations. But to your point, there’s not much out there. And also your point about Squealer the pig, we opened by saying Squealer the pig said, “€œThat all of us in the animal farm are equal but some are more equal than others we pigs are above the rest of you.”€

And that’s exactly what’s happening here, is not all sides of the abortion debate are equal. That are pro-abortion is above the rest of you.

We’ll tell you how to find words.

And Tim, you even opened but mentioned the Equality Act. The Equality Act, everybody in America is equal under the Constitution, but some are more equal than others and that’s why under the Equality—and by the way that’s according to some congressional members.

Equality No Longer Means Equality

It’s not true in reality right. We understand the declaration the founding fathers before that all men are created equal. What makes us equal is we were created equal, we are equal under God. Doesn’t mean we have equal abilities or equal outcomes, doesn’t mean we have equal finances. But as far as the value of personhood we are all equally valuable. But under H.R. 5 they’re saying, “€œWell, we’re just going to favor some groups over other groups instead of treating everybody the same.”€

And while the Constitution says we all equally have a right to religion, under the Equality Act we want you religious people to give that right up, to yield our rights. It does require giving up fundamental inalienable rights to be equal, in their definition of equal, which is why they love using Tim, as you said, words like tolerance, and love, and all these other things they have redefined. Redefining to be things they never were. So what Dave Weldon has helped point out here is how ridiculous the redefinition these words are.

But Tim, as you know, this is largely government funding this, doing this, which is another reason to get these guys completely funded. But even if they are, and even if private industry carries them, it’s still important to note that language does get used in political ways. You’ve got to be really careful what you hear. “€œJudge all things; hold fast that which is true,”€ is what the Bible tells us to do.

Media Caught Skewing Language to Support Abortion

Tim:

And it doesn’t bother me that they’re funded by private institutions. I support that! I believe in the freedom of speech even if I think what you’re saying is dumb, I support your right.

I’m saying it but I would protest the government funding you to say dumb things.

Rick:

Well, it’s gonna be hard to defund them, guys, because it’s such a constitutional expenditure there. Right there in Article 1, Section 8, I think it’s like the third thing listed. National Public Radio, right there in the—-Nope. Nope, I don’t think it’s there. Don’t find anything in the Constitution for funding NPR, or Big Bird, or any of those other expenditures that that that we do on that side of the ledger.

Gotta go, folks. We”€™re out of time for today. You can help support this program and get this information out there to correct these abuses these constitutional abuses from the federal government.

That’s what we’re about is bringing us back to those foundations that make a nation great.

So check it out there WallBuildersLive.com. There is a donate button, and it’s your chance to come alongside us and financially support this effort to save our constitutional republic. We sure appreciate you listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.