When public agencies or govts omit data to serve their own interests, democracy suffers. “It's a form of unfreedom–erasing history, erasing factuality,” says Yale’s Jason Stanley. “We’re going to find out” if legal avenues to keep data honest will be effective, says @profmmurray.bsky.social. #Velshi
msnbc.com
‘A form of unfreedom’: how the omission of public data becomes propaganda
Texas says the state committee that reviews pregnancy-related deaths will not look at cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state banned most abortions. State health officials have framed the move as a way to cut through a backlog of older cases so that the committee’s recommendations will be based on the most recent data available. But it comes after ProPublica’s reporting uncovered three cases of women dying after being denied or delayed abortion care under Texas’ ban and several members of the committee, who spoke to the Washington Post, expressed concerns about not reviewing deaths that could have been caused by delays or denials of care. Yale Philosophy Professor and author Jason Stanley warns, “If you're not informed by the facts, you are literally not free in a democracy. It's a form of unfreedom, erasing history and erasing factuality.” NYU Law professor Melissa Murray says that review boards are becoming politicized and are being turned into “propaganda machines” instead of focusing on scientific data collection.