BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU BELIEVE - Main Stream Media f*cking up again!

This has been all over the news and social media today, with #DeleteFacebook trending on Twitter. As usual, I am furious.

The ONLY sane article I have seen on the subject is this one from The Daily Wire: https://www.dailywire.com/news/she-allegedly-aborted-burned-and-buried-her-baby-heres-how-media-covered-it

"Authorities — unaware that the baby had been illegally aborted — reportedly charged the women in early June with removing, concealing, or abandoning a dead human body, as well as concealing the death of another person and false reporting."

However, on further investigation Direct Messages on Facebook came to light, indicating that an illegal late-term abortion had been committed and not a grossly mishandled miscarriage or stillbirth as they had at first believed:

"The messages led Madison County Attorney Joseph Smith to add two more felonies, performing or attempting an abortion on a baby older than 20 weeks, as well as performing an abortion as a non-licensed doctor, to the charges against the mother."

You'd think this would be enough to have the general public up in arms about two women - women we're constantly being told are innately innocent, nurturing creatures - conspiring to kill a viable foetus and then burning and burying its body... Nope. They've spun it into a pro-choice story making Facebook's COOPERATION WITH A LEGAL ORDER the point of outrage. 

In my opinion THIS IS MISOGYNY - women aren't responsible for their crimes, the big bad patriarchy (FB must be masculine because its logo is blue, right?!) is responsible for betraying them.

FORBES HEADLINE: "Facebook Gave Nebraska Cops A Teen's DMs So They Could Prosecute Her For Having An Abortion" (has since been edited to read: "Facebook Gave Nebraska Cops A Teen's DMs. They Used Them To Prosecute Her For Having An Abortion.")

• FB did not 'give' anything and the original version reads like FB were the ones wanting the girl prosecuted.
• The teen in question also did not simply 'have an abortion' in the usual sense - she was an active participant in an act that is illegal just about everywhere

FIRST SENTENCE: "authorities obtained her Facebook messages using a search warrant"

• all legal and above board - and, as it turns out, for a damn good reason - whether you like it or not

ACTUAL CASE: "court documents indicate that police at the time were investigating the case of a stillborn baby who was burned and buried, not a decision to have an abortion"

• This is nothing to do with a decision to end a pregnancy but performing a medical procedure without qualifications, licenses, access to resources etc etc. If you performed an appendectomy on your kid it'd be much the same kind of illegal!
• The girl is believed to have been at least 23 weeks pregnant, well over the Nebraska state limit of 20 weeks - which in itself is one of the more generous limits - this is NOT a matter of a girl being denied options
• This also dates to BEFORE the overturning of Roe Vs Wade - she'd had at least five, or more likely six months to procure a legal, safe abortion. Possibly she didn't know she was expecting until way too late and that sucks but that still doesn't make the DIY approach okay
• I am pro choice all the way but fastening on to a case featuring the desecration of a corpse and the illegal disposal of human remains is faux outrage
• Abortion, where legal, is regulated for a reason - this girl could have DIED and her mother would be facing whatever the American equivalent of murder or manslaughter charges are
• There is another really important consideration here: what if the young woman had been coerced or forced into an illegal and dangerous termination? What if she had not consented to this?! Abortion is legal in the UK but a married man was recently jailed for trying to abort his girlfriend's pregnancy without her consent (link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/darren-burke-home-office-boss-induce-miscarriage-partner-b2102580.html) yet today's narrative suggests we should turn a blind eye to the red flags
• If a teenage girl is pregnant one day and not the next it merits investigation; if a foetus is found burned and buried it merits investigation. The media is approaching it like she went and had a regular abortion procedure and is now facing jail for it - THIS IS NOT THE SAME

Forbes link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/08/08/facebook-abortion-teen-dms/?sh=30efb86e579c&fbclid=IwAR3U4FkASeBUohxdGCAlpoP4uk97ZLgPEXBdmtSiXBLfKDxR6JVVOWaLPUs

This is NOT an isolated incident with this story. The Guardian led with "Facebook gave police their private data. Now, this duo face abortion charges"

• Again, data not 'given' - nothing is 'private' in a criminal investigation - Facebook DMs can be and are demanded to be turned over in other criminal investigations. Are the media really trying to argue a right to privacy where it relates to crime - murder, terrorism, child abuse?!
• The duo were always facing charges - they were up to their unmentionables in implication of illegal acts!

Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-user-data-abortion-nebraska-police

The Independent led with a marginally less click-bait title and admittedly was a more nuanced article. However, it still focused on the irrelevant Roe vs Wade issue and missed several key points, such as not disputing this comment from former candidate for Congress Brianna Wu:

"The difference in abortion being made illegal before Roe and now
is today we have a surveillance state.
If the tech industry were anything like what they pretend to be
- they’d fight this tooth and nail,”

Fight what?! The legal collecting of evidence to prosecute criminals?! This is NOTHING to do with surveillance. FB did not flag any concern and you can bet that if Al Qaida was plotting terrorist atrocities via social media everyone and their auntie would be up in arms that the platform hadn't monitored and reported it.

Indeed, if they'd fought a legally obtained search warrant there'd be hell to pay - what are they hiding etc etc.

Independent link: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nebraska-abortion-case-facebook-privacy-b2142024.html