Pollak makes several accusations against pro-choice groups in general, Nancy Keenan of NARAL in particular, and Politico.com for some reason. These accusations, starting with the most serious, are as follows:
Joel Pollak's main claim is that pro-choice groups are viciously attacking Paul Ryan by saying untrue things about him. Pollak supports this accusation by saying that one pro-choice group, NARAL, headed by Nancy Keenan, goes beyond disagreeing with Ryan's views to lying about Ryan and about other things. At one point he refers to Keenan's statements as a "torrent" of lies. He also says that the NARAL press release that he says contains these lies is being circulated by Democrats and women's groups. Pollak supports this claim by giving several examples of what he says are lies by Nancy Keenan.
In order to sustain Pollak's thesis, at least three out of these five claims must turn out to be provably lies. If all of Keenan's claims merely turn out to be wrong, then Pollak will not have proved his thesis. Thus, when he accuses Keenan of launching a vicious and false attack on Ryan, he is not merely saying that Keenan has gotten some or all of her facts wrong, he is saying that she deliberately made accusations that she knew were not true, or that she recklessly made accusations without even thinking about whether they were factually supported or not. Deliberate or reckless disregard for the truth is a serious accusation which should only be made when there is clear evidence to support it. Thus, Pollak is not just saying that Keenan's claims are factually incorrect, he is also saying that the evidence against her claims is so clear that she would have had to have had a reckless disregard for the evidence to have said what she said about Ryan/
Each of these individual claims is discussed separately below.
1. Pollak says that Ryan is "accused" by NARAL of holding "'extreme' anti-abortion views. From the use of the word "accused," and the fact that Pollak puts quotes around the word "extreme, I infer that Pollak is saying that Keenan said that Ryan's views are extreme, and that, in Pollak's judgement, Ryan's views are so moderate that calling them "extreme" is not merely exaggerated, but blatantly false. It is important to note that Pollak refers to Keenan's statement about Ryan as an accusation, and thus interprets Keenan as saying something terrible about Ryan. Thus Pollak is not merely disagreeing with Keenan about whether or not the word "extreme" applies to Ryan, he is saying that Keenan's claim about Ryan is so utterly unreasonable that not even the most ardent prochoice advocate would call Ryan "extreme" if they were honest and knew his actual views.
2. Pollack says that Keenan says that Ryan supported a bill called the "Let Women Die Bill," and that this is a lie by Keenan. He quotes Keenan as saying that Ryan “supported the ‘Let Women Die Bill,’ which would allow hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency, lifesaving abortion care, even if she could die without it.” In the quoted material, Keenan is saying that there was a bill that would allow a hospital to say "no" to a woman who requested an abortion, even if that woman would die if she did not get that abortion. Pollak gives several reasons for thinking that Keenan's statement is a lie. These reasons can be listed as follows:
In saying that Keenan lied when she said that Ryan supported a bill that would allow hospitals to refuse to provide an abortions. This would mean that either that there was never any piece of legislation that would have allowed hospitals to refuse to provide abortions to women who needed them to survive, or there was, but Ryan did not vote for it. Since Pollak explicitly references H.R.358, we can assume this is the bill Keenan is talking about, and that Pollak is either saying that this bill does not allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortions to women who needed them to survive, or it does, but Ryan did not vote for it.
3. Pollak says that Keenan "makes it seem that" Ryan had voted to ban abortion at all hospitals, even if the women's life was in danger. Pollak says that Ryan has not voted to ban abortion at all hospitals, even if the women's life was in danger, and supports this claim by making two factual claims:
I'm not sure what Pollak means by "makes it seem that," but I think he means that Keenan has somehow created the impression that Ryan had voted to ban abortion at all hospitals, and that she had created this impression without actually saying that Ryan had voted to ban abortion at all hospitals. (Pollak does not explain how Keenan is supposed to have done this, nor does he explain how such a thing is possible at all.)
4. Pollak reports that Keenan said that Ryan's history includes “Repeatedly voting to deny women in the military – who defend our freedom overseas – the right to use their own, private funds for abortion care at military hospitals.” Interpreting Keenan's quoted words, she is claiming that, on several occasions, some group wanted it to be possible for servicewomen to obtain abortions (using their own money) from overseas military hospitals, and that on at least several occasions, Ryan voted against making it possible for servicewomen to obtain abortions from overseas military hospitals with their own money. Pollak claims that this a lie, and supports his claim with the following fact:
5. Pollack finally quotes Keenan as saying “Romney has pledged that taking away women’s rights will be a priority for him and his choice of Ryan amplifies that promise to the extreme anti-choice backers of this ticket.” I interpret Keenan as saying that during this campaign Romney has made statements indicating a firm intention to make every effort to severely restrict abortion rights if he becomes president. Pollak follows this quote by saying "he has done no such thing," by which I think he means that Keenan is wrong, or lying about Romney's actions. He supports his claim by comparing Keenan's statement that “Romney has pledged that taking away women’s rights will be a priority for him" to a hypothetical pro-life statement that "Barack Obama has vowed to slaughter millions of innocent babies." Pollak compares the two statements and says basically that Keenan's statement about Romney is just as unfair as the hypothetical statement about Obama. I'm not sure what Pollak is saying here. At first I thought Pollak was saying that Romney had not made any formal pledge to take away women's abortion rights, but then I decided that Pollak was saying that Romney had only pledged to take away women's reproductive rights, not all their rights. The difference is important, as it affects the conditions under which Keenan could be said to be lying. If it is the formal pledge thing, then Keenan would be lying if Romney had not made and explicit formal pledge to take away women's reproductive rights, and Keenan had said things that could only be reasonably be interpreted as saying that Romney had made such a formal pledge. If it is the rights thing, then Keenan would be lying if Romney had only pledged to take away women's reproductive rights, and Keenan had said things that could only be reasonably be interpreted as saying that Romney had pledged to take away all the rights women presently have in our society, and not just their right to have abortions.
The above are the major specific factual claims that Pollak made about Keenan. The following are more general claims that Pollak makes about Keenan and others.
Once we get around to evaluating Pollak's claims against Keenan, there will be broadly three possible overall conclusions that we could draw about Pollak's article.
Which conclusion we draw about Pollak will depend in large part on how we assess Keenan. Again, there are broadly three possibility.
If we were to investigate Keenan's claims, and we found that nothing she said was supported by any evidence available to us, or that all the available evidence opposed her claims, and that there was good reason to think that Keenan knew her claims were false, then we should conclude that Pollak was right. (Although even in this case, we would still have to figure out whether or not Pollak had made a good presentation of the case against Keenan.)
If we were to investigate Keenan's claims, and we found that what she said was unsupported or opposed by the evidence, but that there was no reason to think that Keenan knew her claims were false, then we should conclude that Pollak was right about the facts, but was exaggerating or beeing unfair when he said Keenan was lying.
If we were to investigate Keenan's claims, and we found that everything she said was actually supported by evidence, then we should conclude that Pollak was wrong. Furthermore, given the vehemence of Pollak's attack on Keenan, and the fact that Pollak could easily have done the same fact-checking that we did, Keenan turning out to be right would mean that Pollak was either a drooling idiot, a liar, or both.