Christian Right calls victory as it claims it got university to abolish policy it never had

[ck4829]

Talk about being pathetic.

"The other day, we noted that the Alliance Defense Fund had filed a complaint against Vanderbilt University, falsely claiming that the university was "requiring nursing residents to participate in abortion procedures" when, in fact, it was merely requiring residents to agree to "provide compassionate care" to women who had or would be undergoing such procedures, not to participate in the actual procedure.

University spokespeople made that distinction quite clear, but the ADF didn't care and kept asserting that university was forcing students to perform abortions ... so Vanderbilt issued a clarification in an attempt to clear up the ADF's intentional misrepresentation:

"There has been some publicity in the media and on the Internet that reflects a misconception of Vanderbilt University’s policy and practice regarding health care providers (e.g., physicians, nurses and trainees) participating in the termination of a patient’s pregnancy. While Vanderbilt expects all health care providers, including nurses who participate in the Nurse Residency Program’s Women’s Health Track, to provide compassionate care to all patients, no health care provider is required to participate in a procedure terminating a pregnancy if such participation would be contrary to an individual’s religious beliefs or moral convictions."

So the policy is the same as it has always been, but you wouldn't know that from reading right-wing coverage of the clarification ... mainly because ADF continues to lie about it:

"Vanderbilt University abandons illegal policy that forced nursing residents to sign abortion pledge

Vanderbilt University Wednesday modified its nurse residency application so that it no longer requires applicants to pledge that they will participate in abortion procedures. The university made the announcement in an e-mail to applicants one day after the Alliance Defense Fund filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services."

And, of course, the rest of the Right is blindly repeating ADF's spin, claiming Vanderbilt has dumped, dropped, backtracked, and backed down from the policy and "will no longer force its nursing students to assist with abortions."

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/vanderbilt-maintains-policy-religious-right-declares-victory

[MadMaddie]

1. Can the University sue for Libel?

The only way these groups will be shut up is if their pocketbooks are hit. That's all they understand.

[WCGreen]

2. You sure got that one...

They probably could sue and at least make them waste their money.

In fact, that could very well be the kind of tactic to bring them down...