While grading the papers for this assignment, I noticed three closely related ways in which people managed to fail what I thought was a fairly easy assignment. They were:
1. Letting Pollak do your thinking. Some students apparently read Pollak and decided, against instructions, that Pollak just had to be right, and that therefore none of his claims had to be critically evaluated. Such students typically wrote papers that said that Pollak was right, and backed up this thesis simply by describing or repeating what Pollak said without ever thinking about whether or not Pollak's claims were backed up by or even consistent with the available evidence. Indeed, one or two papers were simply paraphrases of Pollak's paper.
2. Refusal to follow instructions. Although some students did very well by approaching the assignment in their own individual ways, many students were not really capable of completing the assignment properly without help. Of those students, the ones who took advantage of the instructions in the prompt, also tended to do well. However, those students who needed help and didn't use the instructions in the prompt tended to do very, very badly.
3. Refusal to read carefully. It is shocking to me how many college students can't read very well. It should be obvious that an assignment of this kind (indeed any college writing assignment) absolutely requires very careful reading of the relevant texts. Unfortunately, several students clearly did not bother to read either Keenan or Pollak very carefully, since they attributed various statements to one or other of these writers that that writer clearly did not say, and completely failed to mention important things that these writers actually did say. Even worse, several students apparantly took Pollak's word for what Keenan said, even though Keenan's actual words were right in front of them.
When you take up the next assignment, make sure you follow instructions, look critically at both Keenan and Pollak, and read both texts very, very carefully.
Here is my model answer:
Let Women Die Bill?
Dr. Young
Pollak does not prove that Keenan lied about anything. The specific claim that he calls a "lie" turns out to be exactly true, even it is not as scary as she seems to think it is. Pollak could have countered Keenan's characterization of the bill by pointing out that there is no known case of any woman dying because she was refused an abortion, that catholic hospitals value life and thus are very unlikely to refuse to provide an abortion that would be needed to save a woman's life, or arguing that EMTALA would override H.R. 358 in such cases, but he does none of these things. Instead, he insists that she lied about Ryan doing something that she didn't say he did, and basing this claim on irrelevant facts and unsupported claims.
Keenan says that Representative Ryan supported a particular bill in congress. She refers to this bill as the "Let Women Die Bill," and says that this bill, if passed, would have allowed hospitals the option of not providing emergency abortion services, even if the woman involved would die without the abortion. She does not say that the bill involved is officially called the "Let Women Die Bill." (When I googled that name, it because clear that this is a nickname for a bill called H.R. 358, which is officially named the "Protect Life Act." She also does not say that this bill is about banning abortion. She just says the bill would allow hospitals to refuse to provide mortally necessary abortions. She also doesn't say that the bill will lead to anyone actually dying, although she does leave open the possibility that someone could die as a result of this bill passing
Pollak at first says that the bill Keenan is talking about does not exist, and then immediately after that he says that Keenan is talking about a bill that does exist. He does not explicitly admit that the bill actually exists under a different name, he says there is no such bill before going on to talk about the bill that he just said didn't exist. There are two ways to interpret this. First, he could be seriously overreacting to the Keenan's use of a non-official name for the bill, or second he could be trying to say that the bill Keenan is referring to does exist, but does not allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortions when the woman's life is in danger. It's hard to tell exactly which of these he is saying. He does correct Keenan's naming of the bill, but using a nickname for a bill is not an instance of lying, and Pollak definitely says that Keenan lied here. On the other hand, while Keenan misrepresenting the content of the bill could be a lie, Pollak never specifically says that the bill does not allow hospitals to refuse lifesaving abortions, which would be the only thing that could prove Keenan a liar here.
Pollak says that the bill H.R. 358 is "about" religious freedom and not "about banning abortion. He says that H.R. 358 came about because some people were worried that the government would make Catholic hospitals perform abortions (which is against their religious principles). This implies that the bill was specifically crafted to allow hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to not perform abortions if they don't want to. Again, Pollak does not say that there's anything in the act that would restrict hospitals' right to refuse abortions to cases where the woman's life was not in danger. Instead, Pollak accuses Keenan of creating an impression in the reader that Ryan had explicitly voted for a universal ban on hospitals performing abortions, even in cases where the mother's life is in danger. While he does not explicitly admit that what Keenan actually said about H.R. 358 is true, he does not explicitly deny it either, which allows the reader to assume that he is not actually challenging Keenan's actual words. This opens up a third possibility for what Pollak is saying. Pollack could be saying that Keenan lied by creating a false impression that Ryan had voted to totally ban abortions at all hospitals. This possibility is somewhat undermined by the fact that Pollak never says how Keenan is supposed to have created this false impression, but it is supported by Pollak saying that Ryan did not vote to ban abortions at all hospitals, rather than denying what Keenan actually said. He also says it is important to mention Ryan's real position on abortion, and that Keenan does not mention this position. Pollak says that Ryan has always opposed abortion, except where the woman's life is in danger. He claims that the fact that Ryan is not opposed to abortions where the woman's life is in danger is exactly the thing that Keenan tries to lie about. This implies that when Pollak said "one of the lies told by Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, is that Ryan 'supported the "Let Women Die Bill," which would allow hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency, lifesaving abortion care, even if she could die without it,'" he means that this sentence is a lie because, 1. somewhere in this statement it says that Ryan opposes even life-saving abortions and 2. Ryan does not oppose life-saving abortions. Pollak supports this second claim with some 14-year-old evidence concerning Ryan's views as reported by the Associated Press all the way back in 1998. The AP indeed says that, at that time, Ryan did not oppose abortion when it was necessary to save a woman's life. Pollak does not give any more recent evidence for Ryan's views on this topic, nor does he say that Ryan did not support H.R. 358, nor that Ryan did not vote for H.R. 358.
The "Let Women Die Bill" is H.R. 358, officially named the "Protect Life Act" but called the "Let Women Die Bill" by a wide variety of feminist pundits. There is absolutely no chance that Keenan was referring to any other bill, or to any bill that does not exist. There is also no chance that any reasonable person who knows about H.R. 358 would fail to realize which bill Keenan was talking about. Even Pollak knew that the "Let Women Die Bill" was H.R. 358, otherwise, he would not have known that it was the bill Keenan was referring to.
I would not be lying if I referred to the PPACA as Obamacare. Calling something by an unofficial name is not lying. There is a form of lying, or at least weaseling, in which something is given a nickname that really fails to properly describe it. For instance, calling tax cuts for rich people "growth incentives" is very dishonest because cutting rich people's taxes has never been shown to stimulate economic growth. Thus if it turned out that H.R. 358 did not contain a provision that would allow hospitals to refuse to give life-saving abortions, calling it the "Let Women Die Bill" would be highly dishonest. However, given that Pollak has not denied Keenan's claim about H.R. 358, it seems unlikely that this will turn out to be the case.
H.R. 358 governs the behavior of federal agencies and federally controlled health plans. It says that they are not allowed to withhold funds from hospitals that refuse to provide a range of services related to abortion. This includes refusing to actually perform abortions, so H.R. 358 does say that hospitals are allowed to refuse to perform abortions. The relevant section does not make any exception for life-threatening pregnancies, so H.R. 358 does indeed say that hospitals are allowed to refuse to perform abortions, even when the woman's life is in danger. I find it significant that a later section of the bill, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions, specifically excludes life-saving abortions from this prohibition. What this means is that H.R. 358 would prohibit the use of federal funds to provide abortions, except for those necessary to save a woman's life, and it would allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, with no exceptions whatsoever. Thus it turns out that Keenan was exactly right about H.R. 358, it would allow hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving abortions.
Pollak and Keenan actually seem to agree that H.R. 358 would allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortions. Keenan specifically says that it does, and Pollak implies that it does when he says it was intended to prevent the Obama administration from forcing hospitals to provide abortions, which is exactly the same thing.
As I said before, Pollak never specifically says that H.R. 358 does not allow hospitals to refuse to perform life-saving abortions. There is no part of his paper where he says this, although he does quote Keenan as saying the opposite, and saying that that's a lie, which implies that H.R. 358 doesn't allow hospitals to refuse to perform life-saving abortions. But on the other hand, his evidence that it's a lie doesn't have anything to do with what H.R. 358 actually says, so it's hard to make out what he's trying to say.
H.R. 358 does allow hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving abortions. It says that hospitals are allowed to refuse to provide abortions, and it makes no exceptions, so it even allows hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving abortions.
Pollak does not prove that H.R. 358 is not the "Let Women Die Bill." In fact, he basically asserts that it is when he says that Keenan is referring to H.R. 358 when she talks about the "Let Women Die Bill."
Keenan did not say anything about H.R. 358 being about or not being about religious freedom, so she cannot have lied about that.
Keenan did not say anything about H.R. 358 being about or not being about banning abortion, so she cannot have lied about that.
Keenan did not say anything about Ryan's views about abortion in 1998, so she cannot have lied about that.
Pollak gives absolutely no evidence that R358 does not allow hospitals to refuse to perform life-saving abortions.
Pollak does not even say that Ryan would not vote for H.R. 358, far less prove it. Also, I think there's a difference between being personally willing to allow something, and being willing to support someone else's right to not do that thing. Plus, it's reasonably possible that Ryan did not believe that even a Catholic hospital would actually allow a woman to die when an abortion could save her, or that he believed that other legislation, such as EMTALA, would require hospitals to provide life-saving care, so that a specific exception for life-saving abortions was not necessary. Besides, Keenan does not say that Ryan voted for a bill that he thought might put women's lives at risk, only that he voted for a bill that she thought might put women's lives at risk.
Ryan did actually vote for H.R. 358. The record shows clearly that he did.
Pollak's reason here is extremely poor. He says that Keenan lied when even minimal research proves that what she said was actually true. He bases his argument on portraying Keenan as saying that Ryan voted to ban abortions at all hospitals, when what she said was that he voted for a specific bill that he actually did vote for.
In my opinion, Keenan wasn't lying, but she is being a little hysterical in how she characterizes H.R. 358. It's true that the bill, in it's precise language, does allow hospitals to refuse to perform even life saving abortions, but this is probably overridden by EMTALA, and besides medical people in Catholic hospitals in the USA are not the kind of people to just let someone die.