New York Times prints correction on pro-abortion story

Jan 9, 2007 / 11:26 am

The New York Times issued an editors’ note stating that a story it had published in its magazine, which claimed that a woman in El Salvador received a 30-year jail sentence for having a clandestine abortion, was not thoroughly researched.

The story was first published in the April 9, 2006 issue of the magazine. The editors’ note, issued Jan. 7, stated that the reporter did not consult the court ruling prior to submitting his story.

“The Times should have obtained the text of the ruling of the three-judge panel before the article was published, but did not vigorously pursue the document until details of the ruling were brought to the attention of editors in late November,” the editors wrote.

The court ruling stated that the woman, Carmen Climaco, was found guilty of infanticide after forensic evidence showed that the baby was full term and breathing when it was strangled.

Furthermore, the editors admitted that the caption under the picture that accompanied the article “also misstated the facts of the ruling.”

“Ms. Climaco was sentenced to 30 years in prison for a case that was initially thought to be an abortion but was later ruled to be a homicide; she was not given 30 years in prison for an abortion that was ruled a homicide,” the note reads.

The inaccuracies in the Times’ article were exposed in November by LifeSiteNews.com, which led to a flurry of letters to Times’ editors. The editors’ note comes one week after the newspaper’s public editor wrote a column corroborating the findings of LifeSiteNews.com.