Last week, I fact-checked PolitiFact for once again missing the boat on abortion, abortion law and the radical nature of the Democratic Party’s position on abortion. The influential liberal fact-checking site played defense for former Ohio governor Ted Strickland in his close race against Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, claiming that support by Strickland and the Democratic Party for radical abortion policies … wasn’t.

The Basic Facts

PolitiFact and Ohio Right to Life are going head-to-head in this war over what words mean. Strickland’s campaign says he believes ‘women have the right to make their own healthcare decisions, and that includes all women regardless of income.” According to Ohio Right to Life, this matches the 2016 Democratic platform, which states: “We will continue to oppose — and seek to overturn — federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.”

“Ted Strickland stands in lockstep with Hillary Clinton and the abortion lobby in their desire to force Americans to pay for abortion on demand, up until the moment of birth, with their taxpayer dollars,” claimed Ohio Right to Life. Strickland’s spokesperson had been speaking in context of overturning the Hyde Amendment, which for four decades has prevented the federal funding of most abortions.

PolitiFact says Ohio Right to Life got it wrong:

Abortions “on demand, up until the moment of birth” are a hypothetical non-event, according to health care professionals. As for abortions being paid for with tax dollars, this is a vast oversimplification of rules surrounding Medicaid, which provides health care for poor women.

This position is nonsense. Overturning the Hyde Amendment would open up the full federal spigot for abortions, not just Medicaid. Additionally, stories abound about unborn children surviving abortions, including those who were murdered by jailed abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Doubling down

That’s not all. As happened earlier this year when PolitiFact played defense for Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the website did not identify Professor Daniel Grossman as an ardent proponent of abortion. Instead, it identified Grossman as “a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.” Likewise, it described the Guttmacher Institute — founded as the research arm of Planned Parenthood, though it is now independent — as a “reproductive health nonprofit.”

Additionally, the propaganda film After Tiller was whitewashed of its pro-abortion tilt. “A 2015 documentary followed the practices of the four remaining doctors in the country who will perform a third-trimester abortion,” wrote PolitiFact.

The Ohio “fact-check” doubled down on a second error made months ago: Claiming that Clinton doesn’t back abortions until the day of birth. This is contrary to Clinton’s opposition to the 2003 partial-birth abortion ban and her opposition to late-term abortion bans, especially in light of how her “health” requirements for either ban are so broad so as to be meaningless.

Federal Funding of Abortion Is Worse Than You Think

In describing the effects of the Hyde Amendment, PolitiFact’s reporter got it both right and wrong. She described Hyde as having “barred federal funding for most abortions since being signed into law in 1976,” but later said Hyde is “prohibiting federal funding of abortion.”

The second statement is clearly inaccurate, given the standards of Hyde. But just as importantly, Planned Parenthood received approximately $60 million in 2014 from the federal Title X program, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). At least four of the contraceptives funded by Title X, however, double as abortion-inducing drugs and devices.

Additionally, as explained at The Federalist last year, millions of federal taxpayer dollars are commingled between the abortion and non-abortion components of Planned Parenthood, which commits about one-third of the officially counted abortions in America.

Why Does It Matter?

According to Alexa, PolitiFact is one of the top 1,000 most-viewed websites in America. Additionally, the Ohio Senate race is relatively close (Portman is up by just over six points), and dishonest abortion politics sunk two GOP Senate candidates in 2012. And while Portman isn’t perfect on other key issues, he is on the right side of history on abortion.

Regardless of politics, the facts in this case are clear. Furthermore, Americans must be made aware of how far outside the mainstream Democrats are on the legality of, and funding for, abortion.

Note: I contacted both the reporter and PolitiFact’s Editor-in-Chief before publishing both of these Ohio-related pro-life fact-checks. I received neither a response or saw an update on the site.