Media’s ongoing lies about Merrick Garland

“The media’s ongoing lies about Merrick Garland are doing a lot more harm than you think” – Palmer Report, James Sullivan

An interesting little blurb on the impact of the latest President Joe Biden administration (Merrick Garland) action reminding hospitals they must do abortions if the mother’s life is endangered.

As taken from the Palmer Report.

Aside from deliberately lying about the nature of the DOJ’s probe into Jan 6, the media’s misrepresentation of Merrick Garland and his work is harmful in a number of ways – eroding faith in democratic institutions while the media is clearly chasing ratings and far more interested in that than democracy itself – as it completely ignores a number of the day-to-day operations the DOJ is currently working on about other things completely unrelated to Donald Trump but still crucial to a functioning democracy.

In a previous Palmer Report story, we discussed how the media has largely neglected Garland’s work on antitrust law – which will inevitably be buried in the event of a Republican administration taking power any time in the foreseeable future. Now we’re seeing the DOJ react to another crucial facet of the law but it’s not nearly getting enough attention at a time when it should.

Merrick Garland on Thursday reacted to the lawsuit launched by Texas in reaction to federal protections the Biden administration has introduced to ensure reproductive freedom throughout the US – making clear that doctors and nurses are protected for giving the care their patients need. Unfortunately, even the fact that the Biden administration enacted this workaround to the overturn of Roe v. Wade has escaped much of the media’s attention, so Garland was forced to go live and talk directly about what the administration is doing. The fact that we no longer have reality TV performers in the executive branch of government is terrible for news ratings and for media pundits – but it’s also kept them from their primary job of informing the public.

The fact is that Biden and his administration have scored an important victory and potential voters don’t realize how significant it is – so much so that Garland felt the need to go public with it. He’s not just upholding this executive order – but even threatening to sue states that will not comply.

The media’s ongoing lies about Merrick Garland are doing a lot more harm than you think – Palmer Report

Let’s be clear about some stuff.

What is Roe v. Wade?

Roe v. Wade was a landmark 1973 decision that ruled abortion as a constitutional right. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s choice to have an abortion outweighs the state’s concern for prenatal life up until the “point of fetal viability”, or the point when a fetus can survive outside the womb (in 1973, this was determined to be 24-28 weeks).

Since this decision, abortion has been a federally protected right, regardless of state laws.”

Can a Woman Still get an Abortion?

To my knowledge and outside of Roe v Wade; “Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA (law) requires medical facilities to determine whether a person seeking treatment may be in labor or whether they face an emergency health situation — or one that could develop into an emergency — and to provide treatment. There is the reasoning for actions to be taken.

“If the physician believes a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA (Law), and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment,”

the agency’s guidance states.

“When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted.”

What is the Joe Biden administration doing?

“Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Department of Justice will ‘use every tool we have to ensure reproductive freedom,’ and will ask a judge to toss a Texas lawsuit challenging federal rules that doctors perform abortions to save the life of the mother (KHN).” The EMTALA is Law. It allows states to do abortions if the mother’s life is endangered. AG Merrick Garland is on record with protecting doctors and medical personal from suits and the states.