I have long had an interest in the use of political messaging, and how media frames a new story to benefit one political party or ideology. National Public Radio, a partially publicly funded radio station, is known for being a left-of-center bias, typically favoring liberal social policies, such as abortion and gun control. I thought it would be interesting to compare the article NPR ran after the passage of New York’s SAFE Act to Texas’  Abortion Regulation Act. New York passed it’s new law in response to the Newtown Shootings, while Texas passed it’s law in response to Kermit Gosnell’s Dirty Abortion clinic where he murdered live-born children.

Headlines After Passage on NPR:

N.Y. Governor Flexes Political Muscle To Pass Tough Gun Law

Abortion Rights Activists Plan Challenge To Texas Measure

Pictures:

The Lead in the Articles:

N.Y. Governor Flexes Political Muscle To Pass Tough Gun Law

On Tuesday, New York became the first state in the nation to pass a tough new gun control law. Gov. Andrew Cuomo convinced his state’s Legislature to act, even before President Obama took executive action to limit access to guns.

The governor’s legislative victory followed his impassioned State of the State address earlier this month, delivered the first day of the 2013 legislative session.

In the speech, the Democratic governor, who owns a hunting rifle, exhorted the Legislature to act quickly. “No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer,” he said.

Just days later, Cuomo was signing the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, which he calls “common sense,” into law. “No one else has to die,” Cuomo said the night before Tuesday’s signing ceremony. “No more innocent loss of life.”

Abortion Rights Activists Plan Challenge To Texas Measure

In a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, the Texas state senate passed a sweeping bill early Saturday that has become a flashpoint in the national abortion debate. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign it in short order.

But the fight is not over. Abortion rights supporters say that the new law attempts to overturnRoe vs. Wade in Texas, and that’s why they plan to take their fight to the courts.

“What this does is completely reshape the abortion landscape in the state,” says Elizabeth Nash, who follows state issues at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group. “With this legislation, Texas will become one of the most restrictive states in the country. And Texas really matters.”

First, Texas is the second most populous state in the nation, with four major cities and 5.5 million women of reproductive age. It also has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation.

And symbolically, Texas was home to Jane Roe, whose fight for a legal abortion went all the way to the Supreme Court — which decided in 1973 that abortion is a woman’s fundamental right under the Constitution.

Under the new law, abortion doctors must get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals; abortion clinics must upgrade to surgical centers; abortion-inducing pills can only be taken when a physician is present; and abortions would be banned 20 weeks after fertilization.

All of these measures have been passed, piecemeal, in other states, where the Center for Reproductive Rights has fought them all, says Julie Rikelman, the group’s litigation director.

“This law can absolutely be stopped. It is a cocktail of restrictions that have been blocked by other courts around the country,” Rikelman says. “It’s clearly unconstitutional and I do believe that courts will find it to be unconstitutional if it’s challenged.”