Fox Abortion Doc Actually Fair, Balanced

When I read that Fox News had produced a documentary on abortion that "avoids taking sides," I didn't believe it. This is a network, after all, that can't seem to state something as simple as a congressman's party affiliation without putting a conservative spin on it.

But the rumors are true. With Facing Reality: Choice, which airs tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET, Fox has lived up to its "Fair and Balanced" slogan, and then some. It's thoughtful, understated, and entirely devoid of right-wing cant.

And it wouldn't have been difficult in the least to weave some in, in the name of "balance." The show follows three pregnant women deciding whether or not to abort; I was expecting at least one to come from a liberal coastal enclave or an inner city. Instead, all three are poor-to-middle class white Christian women from the South or Midwest. The program could've been called Abortion in Red-State America.

All three women are religious, or claim to be, but there's no specious conflation of religiosity with values. In fact, one of the women, Kayla, the only one of the three who ends up having an abortion, says she might have had the baby if she weren't worried that her Baptist congregation would judge a single mother harshly.

"I think they talk a lot about accepting you, but I don't think they really do," she says.

Jeanne, a Texan, cites her Catholic upbringing as the reason she won't get an abortion, even as she continues to date drug dealers, shuffle in and out of rehab and give up child after child to adoption.

Only Brooke, a married mother in Missouri, seems to live the values she espouses. She and her husband choose to carry their fetus to term even though it has a genetic defect that ensures an early death. Her religious convictions help them find peace in tragic circumstances, but only because they accept the science; Brooke's mother continues to believe right up until the end that "God will heal" the baby.

The program's treatment of the doctor who performs Kayla's abortion is especially sensitive. With real conviction, he insists that he's "in the business of saving the lives of my patients," not "murdering children." But he also acknowledges feeling personal guilt when the same women come back to him for repeat procedures.

Fox reports; we decide. It's a good system. They should try it more often.

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