Clarity

"I don’t believe that every person who believes in a woman’'s right to choose an abortion is a card-carrying member of the culture of death and is going straight to hell. I believe that people of good hearts and very good intentions can disagree, but I also believe that the people who have the good hearts, who are in favor of aspects of the culture of death, have for the most part really not thought these things through with an open mind."

So says Dawn Eden, who was let go from her position as a copy editor at the New York Post over allegations she altered copy to be either "more even," or "pro life," depending on which version of the story you find more credible.

"I got choked up," Ms. Eden said. "How are people going to ever understand the complex issues involved here, if the story they'’re reading reduces it to ‘Oh, isn’t this nice? We can just make lots of embryos and not worry about whether they live or die.’"

Ms. Eden read a line in the draft of the story: "Experts have ethical qualms about this ‘Russian roulette’ path to parenthood." She saw her opportunity: She added a phrase: " … which, when in-vitro fertilization is involved, routinely results in the destruction of embryos." And where Ms. Edelman had written that one woman had three embryos implanted "and two took," Ms. Eden changed that to read: "One died. Two took."

Two thoughts on this. One, how are people ever going to get the information to think about if we fire anyone who tries to right the ship? Eden's version is here and is very creepy if true, since there is nothing untrue in her edits. Second, how have I managed to read Dawn's blog off and on for months now and not know she was a copy editor at the New York Post? I like Dawn Eden. She's a huge breath of fresh air. I'm sure she'll be alright, and it'll be interesting to see how this little drama works itself out. Tip: Musings