On Monday, ProPublica published a conveniently timed piece in which they alleged that two pregnant Georgia women died due to the state’s law that limits abortions.
In the above story, through interviews with family members, friends, and a state maternal mortality review committee, ProPublica writer Kavitha Surana detailed the alleged experiences of 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, who found out that she was pregnant with twins around the time Georgia’s law went into effect in the summer of 2022:
Thurman wanted a surgical abortion close to home and held out hope as advocates tried to get the ban paused in court, [her best friend Ricaria] Baker said. But as her pregnancy progressed to its ninth week, she couldn’t wait any longer. She scheduled a D&C in North Carolina, where abortion at that stage was still legal, and on Aug. 13 woke up at 4 a.m. to make the journey with her best friend.
On their drive, they hit standstill traffic, Baker said. The clinic couldn’t hold Thurman’s spot longer than 15 minutes — it was inundated with women from other states where bans had taken effect. Instead, a clinic employee offered Thurman a two-pill abortion regimen approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, mifepristone and misoprostol. Her pregnancy was well within the standard of care for that treatment.
[…]She took the first pill there and insisted on driving home before any symptoms started, Baker said. She took the second pill the next day, as directed.[…]At first, there was only cramping, which Thurman expected. But days after she took the second pill, the pain increased and blood was soaking through more than one pad per hour. If she had lived nearby, the clinic in North Carolina would have performed a D&C for free as soon as she followed up, the executive director told ProPublica. But Thurman was four hours away.[…]On the evening of Aug. 18, Thurman vomited blood and passed out at home, according to 911 call logs. Her boyfriend called for an ambulance. Thurman arrived at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge at 6:51 p.m.
Though ProPublica did not discuss Thurman’s case with any of the doctors or medical staff involved in actually treating her, they said that medical experts they talked to agreed that ” it should have been clear that she was in danger.”
According to the report, “an ultrasound showed possible tissue in her uterus” which they say should have prompted doctors to perform a D&C to “remove the source of the infection.”
“Instead of performing the newly criminalized procedure, they continued to gather information and dispense medicine,” ProPublica alleged.
Had the D&C been done sooner, the maternal mortality review committee determined Thurman would have had a “good chance” of surviving.
But the surgery wasn’t started until some 20 hours after Thurman arrived at the hospital, and unfortunately, she didn’t survive it.
Not surprisingly, Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris pounced and seized on the story as evidence she was right about so-called “abortion bans” and how things would become worse for women if her opponent, former President Donald Trump, was elected:
As it almost always is with these “we warned you this would happen!” stories from left-wing news sources, though, there’s more to it than meets the eye, although in this case, the flaws with the reporting were pretty obvious, as pointed out by LifeNews.com:
In Georgia, abortion is prohibited once the unborn child has a detectable heartbeat, with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, and incest. Georgia law defines “abortion” as an act that “will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child.”The North Carolina abortion pills had already caused the deaths of Thurman’s unborn children. It follows, by definition, that nothing occurring five days later could have possibly violated Georgia’s anti-abortion law.
Pro-lifers on Twitter/X also had a lot to say in response to the story:
Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey wrote:
Malicious disinformation. This woman died from her abortion.She tragically tried to abort her twins via a medication abortion. As is too often the case, parts of the baby were left inside her, which caused her to suffer from fatal sepsis. Yes, she should have received a D&C and antibiotics. But that is not the fault of any Georgia law, which fully permits a D&C when the baby has already passed. She died because of the abortion pills and because of the negligence of doctors. She did not die because of any pro-life law.
Further, a convincing argument could be made that rushing to make abortion pills so readily available without having to see a doctor and have them administer the regimen directly contributed to this tragedy:
And guess what? Harris has led the way on the issue of making access to abortion pills easier:
I eagerly await the forthcoming “fact checks” from the usual corners. Not.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY