July 20, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Alleged comments on rape attributed to Gov. Mike Pence and being used by abortion backers in an attempt to discredit the Republican vice presidential candidate as an extremist were invalidated by a fact-checking website.
The pseudo-story from Newslo, a satirical website similar to The Onion founded in 2012 in New York, was widely circulated and shared worldwide on social media primarily by social liberals who strongly advocate abortion rights and are opposed to the Trump-Pence ticket. Several Indiana newspapers mentioned the story as being untrue.
Snopes.com investigated statements that Newslo claimed Pence made about abortions for rape exceptions — women could “go out and get raped on purpose just so they could get off work” and “when you get an abortion, you get several days off of work and whatnot to recover” — and found them to be fabricated. The Snopes.com investigation into the story was shared more than 3,500 times.
It appears that Democratic opponents mostly steered clear of commenting on the story.
Newslo also erroneously reported on July 17 that Pence said allowing women who had been raped to procure abortions would result in women trying to get raped to have abortions. An excerpt from the Newslo story follows:
The Republican war on women continues unabated. The same week that conservatives argued in the Supreme Court that employers should be able to stop their employees from getting contraception outside of the company health plan, Indiana joined the ranks of states like Texas and Florida in passing a draconian law that purports to protect women, while in fact, endangering their health by making safe abortion much harder to get. And Gov. Mike Pence recently signed it. The bill is stuffed with as many asinine restrictions on abortion with an eye towards making abortion as miserable and humiliating an experience as possible, and ideally something women can’t get legally at all.
… Pence also tried to offer his opinion on what would have happened had he allowed rape victims to still have abortion. “First and foremost, because this is such a sensitive topic, let me just say that I sympathize with rape victims not just in America, but around the world. I can only imagine what it must be like to experience such trauma,” he said. “However, that does not justify murder, not even that justifies murdering a baby, not in my book. Because what would happen? We’d then have an epidemic of women claiming to have been raped just so they could have an abortion. And that has to be stopped at all cost.”
Donald Trump’s new running mate also said, “Basically, if I’d have said no on the bill, that would be just like giving out get-pregnant-without-fear cards, because at the end of the day, women could have unprotected sex without worrying about what they’d do in the event of pregnancy. And you know, it’s not supposed to be like that … And it gets worse — when you get an abortion, you get several days off of work and whatnot to recover. And there are a lot of crazy people out there. What if women would go out and get raped on purpose just so they could get off work? I mean, Indiana’s economy is struggling as it is, and having thousands of women absent from their jobs would be horrific for the state, I’m telling you. I made the right call and that will be confirmed in the long run,” Pence concluded.
Kim LaCapria of Snopes.com wrote that “while the facts of the first paragraph were broadly true (as Pence had signed an abortion bill a few months prior), the remainder of the piece was embellished or entirely fabricated. Pence never said that women would attempt to get raped in order to have an abortion, to obtain days off work or for other reasons.”
She continued, “As with all content on Newslo (and its sister sites Religionlo and Politicalo), the item used a fact-based introduction to lead into counterfactual information. Pence did sign anti-abortion legislation in May 2016 but like all content published by that trio of fake news sites, the article included a “show facts” or “hide facts” button (all content displayed by default in “hide facts” mode).”
Pence’s 100 percent pro-life voting record has been under attack from Democrats and other abortion supporters since Trump announced last weekend that Pence would join him on the Republican ticket as his choice for vice president.
As Indiana governor, Pence recently signed a law banning abortions for genetic abnormalities (including Down syndrome), race, or sex and and mandating ultrasounds be done before abortions. Indiana also requires in its law that abortionists have hospital admitting privileges and that aborted children’s remains be respectfully handled through burial or cremation.
Pence is a born-again Christian in his first term as governor. The pro-life conservative previously served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Newslo has been accused in the past of publishing embellished news stories on politicians Michele Bachmann, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and others with unsupported facts.