As a conservative member of the so-called mainstream media, I am asked quite often about media bias. Almost every time I give a speech and afterward do Q&A, one of the questions is about media bias. My usual answer is that bias is chiefly about blind spots -- lapses in objectivity that journalists don't even realize they make -- and that these blind spots are made more prominent by the nature of deadlines, which give reporters and editors less time to ask themselves if an opinion has, intentionally or not, crept into the story. In my experience working for three large media outlets (the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and of course the AJC), I have seen little to no institutional bias, and even less bias that has gone unaddressed.

But these explanations do not hold in every single instance. And this year has given us a number of reasons to believe abortion is the subject on which the media display the least amount of objectivity.

Wendy Davis, the Texas legislator who became famous for her filibuster last week of a state law that would have banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, appeared on ABC's "This Week" last weekend. She faced six tough, hard-hitting questions: including two about the pink running shoes she wore while filibustering, and one about what it was like to receive so much support "from movie stars and the president."

None of the six questions attempted to get her to explain why it should remain legal to abort unborn children that can feel pain and hear their mothers' voices.

As the New York Times' Ross Douthat notes, ABC's softball interview with Davis is particularly galling in light of the highly publicized trial earlier this year of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of killing babies outside the womb that could breathe, scream, move their arms and in some cases might have survived with medical assistance, had "Doctor" Gosnell given them any. In short, he was convicted for doing outside the womb what Davis and other pro-choice extremists want to remain legal inside the womb.

Writes Douthat:

"[I]t seems like a genuinely fair-minded, ideologically disinterested press would at least tend to mention the link between the Gosnell case and the Texas bill as often as it mentions Wendy Davis's footwear. Or at least take note, when framing its coverage of her filibuster, of the fact that Davis's understanding of 'women's rights' is shared by at best a minority of American women. Or at least ask Davis, in a nationally-televised interview, to actually explain her views on late-term abortion, instead of allowing her to skate through the conversation without even using the word 'abortion' at all.

"But given that the national media had to be basically shamed into covering the Gosnell case in the first place, it isn't surprising that we're getting running shoes instead."

That link in Douthat's post about women's opinion takes you to the results of a National Journal poll showing half of all women support banning abortion after 20 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger. (The Texas bill included only the life-of-the-mother exception; as I've written before, three exceptions tend to be much more acceptable to most Americans.) Note that the 50 percent support among women is actually larger than support among men, which was 46 percent. Note also that support for such a ban is notably higher among 18- to 29-year-olds than Americans age 50 and above, and that support among independents (53 percent) tracks much closer to Republicans' level of support (59 percent) than Democrats' (33 percent).

These poll results, as Ben Domenech writes at Real Clear Politics, are not an outlier ... unless they're on the low side for supporting abortion restrictions:

"Obviously the overall story about how Americans view the right to marriage is one of ever increasing majorities. From just a few years ago, when Americans were split on the issue at best, they now have marked majorities in favor of same sex marriage -- 71% according to some polls, 86% according to others. The argument has been won, and cultural unanimity is virtually complete.

"Oh, my mistake. It's actually around half of Americans who favor gay marriage. Those figures above are for the percentage of Americans who support banning abortion after the first trimester (13 weeks), and after the second trimester (28 weeks), respectively.

"But that can't be possible. Because if that was the case, wouldn't we have heard about it, from the newspapers? Maybe they just haven't gotten around to reporting it -- a blind spot missed amidst all the other pressing news. Except -- it looks like Americans have thought this for almost two decades. The percent supporting a second trimester ban has never dropped below 64 percent, and the percent supporting a third trimester ban has never dropped below 80 percent in that time. These positions are true elsewhere, too --once a baby starts looking like a baby, people tend to think it ought to be protected. That's why most of Europe has bans on abortion ranging from 10 to 22 weeks, and the major countries have first trimester bans ...."

But you might be surprised to learn these results are so, given that -- even as politicians, commentators and media outlets prod us to follow public opinion on topics such as gay marriage -- they are not so widely reported.

Compare as well the heavy -- and in my view, well-deserved -- criticism and scrutiny U.S. Senate also-rans Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock received last year for what amounted to terrible defenses of the one-exception position on abortion, to the kid-gloves treatment Davis got for what amounts to defending a distinction between convicted killer Gosnell and other abortionists based on where the child is killed.

It's well past time for Davis's kind of extremism -- and the public's view of it as such -- to get the same kind of attention and scrutiny that pro-lifers have grown all too accustomed to getting.