PolitiFact Falsely Fact-Checks Focus on the Family’s Ad on Late-Term Abortions

Former President Ronald Regan once famously said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

This axiom was recently on full display when the so-called factchecking organization PolitiFact attempted to review a claim that Focus on the Family made in recent social media advertisements.

Focus ran ads in several liberal states, including New Mexico, Oregon, Alaska, Vermont and New Jersey.

In those states, Focus made the claim: “Did you know that abortion is available all nine months of pregnancy in [insert state] – even up until the moment before birth and for any reason?”

Focus also stated that Colorado law “allows for abortion at any point of pregnancy – right up to delivery.”

PolitiFact decided to factcheck these ads and rated the claims as “Mostly False.”

In response to PolitiFact’s article, our team at Focus on the Family reached out to the author asking him to explain the “Mostly False” rating.

We wrote:

Your article declares our ads “Mostly False” simply because, though it’s legal to abort a baby throughout the nine months of a pregnancy, it’s reportedly rare? Our ads are calling attention to the laws in those states, and even you acknowledge the laws don’t prohibit abortion at any time. By what standard/measure would our statements be “Mostly False?”

In response, author of the PolitiFact article, Tom Kertscher, said, “The statement said that abortions are available and for any reason; we found that late-term abortions are rare and usually for urgent medical reasons, and that abortions near full term are not done.”

Towards the end of PolitiFact’s article, the organization states, “Near full term, contrary to what the ads suggest, abortions are not done, experts say.”

It’s past time for someone to factcheck the phony factcheckers.

First, the PolitiFact article concedes that in the six state Focus’ mentioned, “Abortion is not prohibited at a specific gestational age before fetal viability … However, late-term abortions are rare in each state.”

This concession by PolitiFact should make our claim, that in these six states, “Abortion is available all nine months of pregnancy,” factually true.

We did not make a claim on how frequently late term abortions are performed, or how late in pregnancy late term abortions occur.

And yet, PolitiFact defended its “Mostly False” rating to us by stating that “late-term abortions are rare.”

It’s true that late-term abortions are rare – but Focus never claimed that they weren’t, only that late-term abortions are legally available to women in multiple states.

Additionally, without a doubt, late-term abortions are performed in the U.S.

Perhaps Tom Kertscher has never heard of LeRoy Carhart, founder of Clinics for Abortion & Reproductive Excellence (ghoulishly shortened to “CARE”).

CARE has two clinics in Maryland and Nebraska, and services women from many other states, including all six states which Focus’ ads highlighted.

The website for the abortion clinic states that their “mission is to provide late term abortions in Colorado.”

“We provide assistance to women in Colorado with late term abortions, third trimester abortions, [and] abortion after 27 weeks,” CARE states.

Any abortion done after 27 weeks is certainly “near” full term – which PolitiFact says never happens.

We’ve chosen not to link to CARE’s website, in order to not provide a scintilla of support to that organization.

Additionally, has Tom Kertscher heard of the Boulder Abortion Clinic, run by “Doctor” Warren Hern?

The website for the clinic states that patients come in “for third trimester abortion (later abortions).”

The clinic also says under its section entitled “abortion services,” that the clinic provides abortions in the “third trimester – over 28 weeks.”

Any abortion done over 28 weeks is certainly “near” full term.

Again, we will not link to the clinic’s website.

The 1976 political drama film All the President’s Men coined the phrase, “Follow the money.”

We can follow that piece of advice in this case.

We looked into the funding that PolitiFact receives and discovered that the organization is run by the Poynter Institute.

That institute has received $382,997 from the notoriously liberal and pro-abortion Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation donates heavily to Planned Parenthood, recently shelling out $1,730,000 to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

In 2021, the Gates Foundation also pledged $1.4 billion to “expand the use of family planning” across the globe. The term “family planning” is code for expanding access to abortions, abortifacients and contraceptives, and the foundation said part of the money would be used “to develop contraceptive technologies.”

Should a supposed factchecking organization receive funds from a blatantly biased and pro-abortion organization?

Our ruling

Photo Credit: PolitiFact

PolitiFact attempts to smear Focus’ true ads by claiming that though our ads correctly call attention to permissive abortion laws in several states, because late-term abortions are “rare,” our statement is “Mostly False.”

We rate PolitiFact’s claim as “Mostly False.”

Photo from Shutterstock.