Dan Rather believes that those who oppose abortion are against women's rights. He prefers the liberal term, "late-term abortion" and says "partial-birth abortion" only when saying what abortion opponents call it.

Those who support these abortions used to say that the procedure was "rarely used" until they publicly admitted that that was not true in 1997. Rather uncritically adopted that belief, calling it "rarely used," until his own program reported on their admission. He also chooses to use the liberal phrase, "a woman's right to choose" when discussing abortion.

Rather displays a typical tendency to relay statements made only by supporters of abortion, choosing to not inform viewers what the other side had to say.

"Senator Simon, is there any doubt in your mind that [David Souter's] views pretty well parallel those of John Sununu's which means he's anti-abortion or anti-women's rights, whichever way you want to put it?"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 23, 1990.

"[Bush] has also talked of appointing judges -- to the Supreme Court and the federal bench -- who will 'strictly interpret the Constitution,' which many read as code words for 'judges who are against abortion.'
--Dan Rather in "Rather's Notebook" at the CBS News Web site, June 14, 2000.

"Clinton vetoed the House's ban on rarely used, so-called partial-birth abortions."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, November 1, 1995.

"While trying this week to defuse the issue of abortion and woman's right to choose, the Bush-Quayle campaign has opened up a new attack on an old target, the American news media. For many of their problems, they blame the press."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 14, 1992.

RATHER:"On the Republican side, George W. Bush plunged to the Right with more anti-abortion talk, trying to position himself as the anti-abortion candidate."
"Now Bill Whitaker covering Bush's sudden rush to the Right."
WHITAKER: "George W. Bush today ratcheted up the rhetoric on a tried-and-true Right-wing issue: abortion."
--Dan Rather and Bill Whitaker on the CBS Evening News, January 21, 2000.

The House passed a bill called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and Dan Rather decided to relay what only one side thought of it:
"On Capitol Hill today abortion foes in the House passed their first bill since President Bush took office. While never mentioning abortion, this bill would make it a Federal crime to harm a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman. Abortion rights groups say this is an attempt to open the door to limiting a woman's right to choose by defining a fetus as a person."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, April 26, 2001.

"One of the running stories of Campaign '92 is that this is the year of the woman. Galvanized by the issues of sexual harassment and abortion rights, the whole Clarence Thomas hearing and so on--more and more women are testing their political power and promising change."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 14, 1992.

"And the, quote, 'Religious Right'--they delivered for the Republican Party, particularly in the South and up the breadbasket states on into the Mountain states. However, the Religious Right is insisting that the Republican Party be opposed to a woman's right to choose an abortion. What's the party to do about that?"
--Dan Rather to Republican analyst Kevin Phillips during live 1996 Election Night coverage.

"At the warm-up this week for the Republican convention in Houston, there has been a river of rhetoric in an effort to water down a split, trouble on the issue of abortion and a woman's right to choose."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 14, 1992.

"For all sides in the debate over a woman's right to decide what to do with her pregnancy, about abortion, there is the law and there is the emotion. What would you do? How far would you go to ensure a woman's right to choose whatever she wants to do with her own pregnancy? Or how far would you go to stop an abortion?"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 20, 1992.

One of President Bill Clinton's first acts in 1993 was to repeal the ban on federal funding for international groups that assist in abortions. One of President George W. Bush's first acts was to reinstate that ban. In so doing, Clinton kept a "promise" while Bush pleased "the right flank of his party":
"On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Clinton fulfills a promise--supporting abortion rights."
"It was 20 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark abortion rights ruling and the controversy hasn't stopped since. Today, with the stroke of a pen, President Clinton delivered on his campaign promise to cancel several anti-abortion regulations of the Reagan-Bush years. CBS News correspondent Rita Braver has our report."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 22, 1993.

"Up next here on the CBS Evening News, President Bush's fast anti-abortion action."
"This was President Bush's first day at the office, and he did something to quickly please the right flank in his party. He re-instituted an anti-abortion policy that had been in place during his father's term and the Reagan presidency, but was lifted during the Clinton years. CBS News chief White House correspondent John Roberts has more about the new President Bush in the Oval Office."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 22, 2001.

John McCain and George W. Bush were the frontrunners in the 2000 Republican primaries:
RATHER: "[T]oday [Bush] took a tougher line against abortion rights. This as his differences with McCain over who has the best tax cut plan got sharper and louder. CBS's Bill Whitaker is amongst the Republicans."
WHITAKER: "Squeezed from the Right in Iowa by his most socially conservative opponents, George W. Bush moved to fend them off today with his hardest line so far on abortion and the Supreme Court decision legalizing it." "That might help him with Iowa Republicans in the caucus Monday, yet hurt him with women voters down the road."
--Dan Rather and Bill Whitaker on the CBS Evening News, January 20, 2000.
Note: As of January 2000, most women were against abortion, according to a poll commissioned by the National Organization for Women.

"A federal appeals court today overturned a law in the U.S. territory of Guam that would have barred almost all abortions. The court said it goes against the landmark Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which remains the law of the land and upholds a woman's right to decide."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, April 16, 1992.

Republicans introduced two bills:
"One involves maternity time in the hospital and insurance companies. The other involves a rarely used type of late-term abortion performed after the first trimester."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 19, 1996.

"Surgeon General C. Everett Koop...reportedly concluded that a woman who has an abortion suffers little if any physical or emotional harm from the experience."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 9, 1989.
Note: The actual letter that the Surgeon General wrote to President Reagan said, "[S]cientific studies do not provide conclusive data about the health effects of abortion on women." Rather says that Surgeon General Koop did conclude something about abortion's health effects on women.

"As the Christian Coalition was meeting, Republicans in the U.S. Senate were voting, trying again to deliver on one of the group's top agenda items: overriding President Clinton's veto of a ban on a type of late term abortion. The vote to override the President's veto failed by three votes."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 18, 1998.

"President Clinton's veto of a bill that would have banned a rarely used type of late-term abortion will stand. The Senate failed to get the two-thirds majority vote needed to override the president's veto."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 26, 1996

"Now the main speaker tonight...is pro-choice. How mad does that make you?"
--Dan Rather to Pat Robertson during CBS's Republican convention coverage, August 1996.

"[Arlen] Specter had tried to break out of the GOP candidate pack with his stand for a woman's right to have an abortion, and against what he called the party's extreme far Right. But he failed."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, November 22, 1995.

"Another nagging problem for Dole: abortion. His advisers are now wrangling over whether to include his own pro-life position, as he calls it, in tomorrow night's acceptance speech--that of course would please the religious right here at the convention--or leave it out to appeal to the wider audience at home, especially women."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 14, 1996.

"Joe Klein, CBS News consultant, Newsweek magazine columnist, says what it's about--what he calls the toning down of your hard Right message is--what it's about is trying to attract voters of Roman Catholic religion. That true?" "Phil Gramm says, in effect, it'd be suicidal for the Republican Party to nominate you because you're too far to the Right, particularly on abortion."
--Dan Rather to Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan on the CBS Evening News, February 11, 1996.

"The U. S. Senate today broke an impasse and confirmed Dr. David Satcher as U. S. surgeon general. The post had been vacant since Dr. Joycelyn Elders quit under fire three years ago. Opponents mainly objected to Satcher's stand for abortion rights."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 10, 1998.

"The first lady, Hillary Clinton, made headlines of her own in Argentina today--a passionate speech in that overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country--speaking out for birth control and the rights of women."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 16, 1997.

"Vicki Saporta is head of the National Abortion Federation, an abortion rights lobbying group."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 13, 1999.

"One thing America didn't talk about early in the century was sex. Margaret Sanger changed that. She was a true revolutionary who went to jail for the crime of promoting birth control, a phrase she coined. Her efforts foreshadowed the women's movement, and secured Sanger her place on the CBS News-Time 100 list."
"She knew firsthand the strains big families put on women." "She vowed to break the conspiracy of silence that barred honest talk about family planning, and opened America's first birth control clinic, in Brooklyn, in 1916."
"She joined forces with the suffragette movement, lobbying to get women the vote, and was arrested eight times. For half a century, Margaret Sanger spoke passionately in favor of women's rights, taking on all the enemies of birth control, including the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church."
--Dan Rather on CBS's People of the Century, April 6, 1998.

The Republican convention had just approved its platform at the 2000 convention:
"Also unchanged is the Republican platform's hard stand against abortion rights and a woman's right to choose."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 28, 2000.
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