This is from PolitiFact, so you can be sure there’s more to the story. The “fact checking” website gave former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley a “Mostly False” rating after she sent an email for policy group Stand for America discussing the Green New Deal and saying candidates who supported it “touted everything from putting limits on red meat consumption, to promoting abortion in third world countries to control the population!”
To get the “Mostly False” rating, PolitiFact, naturally, ignored part of what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said during a debate.
Haley’s rhetoric was likely based off of Sanders response to a question during CNN’s September 4 climate change town hall. Here’s what PolitiFact highlighted:
Question: “Human population growth has more than doubled in the past 50 years. The planet cannot sustain this growth. I realize this is a poisonous topic for politicians, but it’s crucial to face. Empowering women and educating everyone on the need to curb population growth seems a reasonable campaign to enact. Would you be courageous enough to discuss this issue and make it a key feature of a plan to address climate catastrophe?”
Sanders: “Well, Martha, the answer is yes. And the answer has everything to do with the fact that women in the United States of America, by the way, have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions. And the Mexico City agreement, which denies American aid to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control to me is totally absurd.”
But PolitiFact leaves out what Sanders said immediately after this. As the BBC reported at the time, Sanders went on to say:
So, I think, especially in poor countries around the world where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies, and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to control the number of kids they have, is something I very, very strongly support.
Now, Sanders said “birth control” instead of “abortion,” but the two are interchangeable to today’s Left.
Now, PolitiFact is correct to note the Green New Deal does not mention “abortion” or “population,” but Haley didn’t say it did. She said candidates who support it (like Sanders) have promoted “abortion in third world countries to control the population.”
Here’s how PolitiFact determined their ruling:
The email distorts the Green New Deal resolution by linking it to abortion. (The linked petition is even more direct.) The only element of truth in her attack is Sanders, one of the 2020 presidential candidates, linked climate change, population control and reproductive rights in a town hall.
So, the “only element of truth” is almost exactly what Haley said, yet she gets a “Mostly False” rating.
PolitiFact didn’t even mention the fact that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who first proposed the Green New Deal, asked in February 2019 whether it was “OK to still have children” given the future effects of climate change.
These are the kinds of rulings that cost “fact checking” outlets credibility. If a Democrat made a similar statement about what a Republican said about, say, gun control, they would receive a more favorable ruling.