Be grateful you don't live in France. Be grateful Kamala Harris didn't win the election and try to make us more like France. That country appears to be cracking down on free speech and ramping up its pro-abortion stance.
CNews is a French news channel that is now considered an "opinion channel" by many in France because it tends to lean conservative when reporting on the news and other topics. It's owned by French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, who is known for his strong Catholic beliefs. It's been called the "French Fox News," and it's been warned and fined by France's Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (Arcom) (that's the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication in English) for some controversial reporting in the past.
While I can't support some of the things they've reported over the years, I can support what I believe is their right to say it. But the French government apparently does not. It's no wonder professor and legal scholar Jonathan Turley has called the nation "one of the world's greatest threats to free speech."
But Arcom's latest anti-free speech condemnation and censorship of the network is even more frightening. Earlier this year, on a Catholic program called "En quête d’esprit” (“In Search of Spirit"), presenter Aymeric Pourbaix was talking about the main causes of death in the world. An infographic posted showed that the leading cause of death was abortion with 73 million deaths each year worldwide. It was followed by cancer, which causes 10 million deaths, and smoking, which causes 6.2 million deaths. Notably, abortion accounts for 52% of deaths in the world.
The French government didn't like this "inconvenient truth" as the European Conservative called it. Arcom not only forced CNews to pay a fine of 100,000 euros, but the network also had to issue a public apology that included the statement, "Abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death," which is sort of odd because 96% of biologists state that life begins at fertilization. If it's not a death, then what is it?
Turley says leftist pundits and members of the press were largely to blame:
Obviously, many people around the world view abortion as the death of a human being. However, the press and pundits on the left went ballistic at the statement and called for a crackdown by the government. It is now a violation of law to call abortion a cause of death.
Journalists joined the call for censorship and accused the network of publishing biased and dangerous ideas.
The network was beaten into submission and apologized “for the people who may have been hurt by this infographic.”
Barring people from calling abortion a cause of death is only the latest speech crackdown in a nation that prides itself as a cradle of liberty.
While this is a major free speech violation, it's also worth it to point out that earlier this year, France became the first nation in the world to determine that abortion is a constitutional right. According to CNN, "Lawmakers from both houses of the French Parliament voted 780 to 72 in favor of the measure, easily clearing the three-fifths majority needed to amend the French constitution." It was allegedly a "direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade." Abortion has been legal in France since 1975.
French President Emmanuel Macron called it "French pride" that would "send a universal message." After the measure passed, the Eiffel Tower celebrated the news by lighting up with the message "My Body, My Choice," according to the BBC.
Whether you're pro-life, pro-choice, or something in between, abortion is not a topic to celebrate, and it astonishes me to see anyone doing just that. Even Democrat hero President Bill Clinton said it's something that should be "safe, legal, and rare."
Democrats have gone from their stances on abortion being “safe, legal, and rare” to wanting to codify infanticide in a span of 30 years.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 11, 2022
As I said at the beginning of this article, be glad you don't live in France, though I can't help but think we aren't far behind.
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