Media blames pro-life laws for tragic deaths of women

Oswald Clark:

Amber Thurman, left, and Candi Miller, right, died after taking the abortion pill. Pro-abortion activists are claiming the two mothers died because of Georgia’s pro-life law that bans abortion once a heartbeat is detectable at six weeks.

A pair of Georgia residents, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, are dead after taking the abortion pill, mifepristone. Media reports three days apart in September claimed these women died due to the state’s pro-life law.

Thurman, 28, died in 2022, due to complications from mifepristone which left parts of her twin preborn babies inside her following her chemical abortion. Thurman obtained the abortion pills legally in North Carolina to kill her twins in utero and was admitted to hospital for a serious infection when she returned to her native Georgia. The infection was caused by the incomplete expulsion of some of her preborn babies’ remains.

Physicians at Piedmont Henry Hospital in suburban Atlanta monitored her condition which worsened before a scheduled procedure to remove the remains left by the incomplete chemical abortion. The dilation and curettage procedure in these cases are not considered an abortion and is legal when used to remove a child after a miscarriage or the remaining parts of a preborn child following an incomplete abortion.

Media outlets such as the New York Times, Slate, and People picked up the story originally reported in the left-leaning ProPublica, with all reporting that Georgia’s restrictive abortion law that outlaws prenatal homicide after embryonic cardiac-cell activity can be detected, is typically at five to six weeks gestation. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris tweeted “Trump Abortion Bans prevent doctors from providing basic medical care.”

Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the state’s pro-life heartbeat act was not responsible for Thurman’s death because the law allows physicians to intervene in medical emergencies or in cases where there is no detectable heartbeat in the preborn child. Michael J. New of the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute commented, “Both of these clearly applied in Thurman’s case.” A fact sheet produced by the Institute dated Sept. 13 stated, “All pro-life state laws allow doctors to exercise their medical judgment to treat women with pregnancy emergencies. No law requires ‘imminence’ or ‘certainty’ before a doctor can act to save the patient’s life.”

News of Miller’s death came three days after ProPublica reported that in November 2022, Candi Miller, 41, ordered abortion pills online and experienced an incomplete abortion, leaving parts of her preborn child inside her. She, too, qualified for a dilation and curettage procedure, but did not seek medical care at a doctor’s office or hospital emergency room. Her teenage son said she was moaning in agony for days after taking the abortion pill and her husband found her unresponsive in her bed alongside her 3-year-old daughter. The official autopsy of Miller’s death, reported discovering finding “products of conception” following her incomplete abortion as well as a lethal combination of painkillers and fentanyl.

SBA Pro-Life America’s state policy director Katie Daniel said that, “We mourn the senseless loss of Amber, Candi, and their unborn children” … “We agree their deaths were preventable. But let’s be absolutely clear: Georgia’s law and every pro-life state law calls on doctors to act in circumstances just like theirs.”

Daniel said, “If abortion advocates weren’t spreading misinformation and confusion to score political points, it’s possible the outcome would have been different.” Pro-abortion activists claim that laws that outlaw or restrict abortion also prevent health care providers from treating pregnancy complications or miscarriages.

SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser said, “The common factors in the tragic deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller are dangerous abortion drugs and inappropriate care for their complications.” Dannenfelser said that “abortion drugs send one in 25 women to the emergency room,” a fact acknowledged by the Food and Drug Administration’s own labeling for mifepristone.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute’s New said that “better reporting would show that chemical abortions pose serious health risks for women” but instead, ideologically committed journalists misrepresent the tragic deaths of pregnant women and call for rescinding pro-life laws.

Live Action responded to the ProPublica report by observing it did not inform readers of important facts such as dilation and curettage procedures are legal “in Georgia unless used to intentionally kill a child in the womb,” that “sepsis is a known risk of the abortion pill,” that its blaming of the pro-life law was pure “speculation” and that there was no medical explanation for why the D&C was not performed in a timely fashion.