Reuters editor offers his opinion on abortion

So now we know how Reuters stands on the issue of abortion (we’ll just leave out the fact that they refused to call the 9-11 terrorists – terrorists). From Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post:

After sending out a routine press release on abortion, the National Right to Life Committee received a stinging e-mail from Todd Eastham, a Reuters editor in Washington:

“What’s your plan for parenting & educating all the unwanted children you people want to bring into the world? Who will pay for policing our streets & maintaining the prisons needed to contain them when you, their parents & the system fail them? Oh, sorry. All that money has been earmarked to pay off the Bush deficit. Give me a frigging break, will you?”

Douglas Johnson, the committee’s legislative director, says it’s “sad” to see “such blatant hostility” toward the Bush administration and unborn children. But Eastham, saying he doesn’t usually edit stories involving abortion, responds that he read the release “as a personal political solicitation and was not responding in my capacity as an editor. I didn’t intend this as a professional communication.” Reuters spokesman Stephen Naru says it’s “unfortunate” that an editor “chose to offer his personal opinion.”

Reeeeal nice.