ProPublica Blames Pro-Lifers For Abortion Pill-Linked Death

Democrats and corporate media are exploiting the death of a Georgia woman to vilify life-saving pro-life policies ahead of the 2024 election. Yet, it is the abortion extremism they routinely promote that led to her preventable death.

Twenty-eight-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman and her twin babies died in 2022 after the single mother suffered untreated complications from the dangerous drug regimen responsible for more than half of the nation’s abortions.

ProPublica, an outlet known for running smears on behalf of Democrats, published a report this week blaming confusion about Georgia’s lifesaving abortion limits for Thurman’s death.

The article inspired a wave of pro-abortion propaganda from Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who expressed no hesitation about using Thurman’s untimely death to advance her political agenda.

A closer look at the circumstances that led to the single mother’s passing, however, indicates that she died on the table during a surgery only needed because she suffered severe complications from ingesting abortion pills associated with sometimes fatal complications. Even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration admits nearly 1 in 25 women who take it will end up in the emergency room or hospitalized.

At nine weeks pregnant, Thurman traveled across state lines into North Carolina to get her twin babies dismembered. A traffic delay and scheduling conflict with the abortion facility, however, ultimately pushed her to accept a chemical abortion alternative.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s radically relaxed abortion pill expansions, Thurman was able to induce abortion hours away at home unsupervised.

Five days after she obtained and ingested the pills without consistent medical oversight, Thurman began experiencing some of the many side effects (which ProPublica insists are “extremely rare”) associated with chemical abortions, including vomiting, fainting, and excessive blood loss.

The Peach State’s pro-life laws specifically carve out exceptions for abortion procedures like dilation and curettage if it “is necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

According to ProPublica’s account, Thurman’s babies were already partially expelled when she rolled into Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia experiencing septic abortion. Doctors considered a D&C for Thurman that night but ultimately did not get her into surgery until the next afternoon.

A maternal mortality review committee concluded that earlier intervention “could have” saved Thurman but did not specify why that did not happen. It’s also unclear what effect abortion pill reversal, which Democrats and corporate media routinely smear, would have had on Thurman if she had been offered it.

Bloodied Hands

ProPublica, despite acknowledging that “it is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C to Thurman,” hinted without evidence multiple times that the doctors tasked with “performing the newly criminalized procedure” were afraid to do so due to Georgia’s pro-life laws.

“Piedmont did not have a policy to guide doctors on how to interpret the state abortion ban when Thurman arrived for care, according to two people with knowledge of internal conversations who were not authorized to speak publicly,” ProPublica noted.

In assuming the doctors’ hands were tied, ProPublica essentially suggests that those in charge of Thurman’s care chose their jobs over the life of the young mother they swore in the Hippocratic Oath to protect.

Despite the chilling implications of this assertion, the outlet maintains a tone of sympathy for the healthcare professionals they purport have been deprived by pro-lifers of the ability to do their jobs.

“In interviews with more than three dozen OB-GYNs in states that outlawed abortion, ProPublica learned how difficult it is to interpret the vague and conflicting language in bans’ medical exceptions — especially, the doctors said, when their judgment could be called into question under the threat of prison time,” the article notes.

Pro-abortion media like ProPublica have spent the last two and a half years since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision demonizing Republican efforts to bring their state laws up to speed with Americans’ support for limiting abortion.

They and Democrats have repeatedly and wrongfully claimed that women experiencing ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages could not receive the care they needed due to the 2022 decision and pro-life laws.

Thurman’s death was surely “preventable.” But the primary reason for it was not Georgia Republicans’ commitment to protecting life in the womb.

Instead, all evidence suggests Thurman’s death was due to medical negligence egged on by leftist fearmongering about lifesaving laws that provably protect women and babies from harm.

If ProPublica happens to be correct in its assumption that the doctors refused to operate on Thurman until it was too late because they didn’t want to lose their licenses, they are not only indicting the doctors, but also themselves, their Democrat accomplices, and the entire corporate media complex.

More To Come

ProPublica, like so many other propaganda outlets, are not secretive about their roles in the operation to smear Republicans, red states, and pro-life policies ahead of the 2024 election.

“Such stories have been at the center of the upcoming presidential election, during which the right to abortion is on the ballot in 10 states,” the article states.

Like Georgia, Louisiana has also found itself in corporate media crosshairs as the Republican state preps to enforce an Oct. 1 law that aims to punish anyone who knowingly tries to induce chemical abortion in a woman without her consent.

Outlets such as the Washington Post are already claiming, against all evidence, that the law classifying abortion pills as a “controlled dangerous substance” will prevent pharmacies and hospitals around the state from effectively treating patients suffering from miscarriages, hemorrhages, and other pregnancy complications.

As Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murril clarified in a memo this week, Louisiana’s pro-life protections do not “limit a healthcare provider’s ability to use, prescribe, or fill these medications for legitimate health purposes nor does it impose restrictive burdens on access for emergency purposes.” In fact, guidance released by the Louisiana Department of Health reaffirms that doctors have a duty and authority to treat their patients with the abortion drug regimen within the bounds of the law.

“These laws do not restrict qualified, ethical doctors from caring for mothers and their babies. Louisiana laws and regulations ensure, expect, and empower physicians to use reasonable medical judgment to care for pregnant women — including those facing emergencies, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and fetal abnormalities,” Murril wrote.

Women who do not receive treatment for pregnancy complications under the exceptions built into those laws are not simply victims of medical negligence. Their struggles and sometimes even deaths are directly exacerbated by the radical and deliberately deceptive abortion narratives touted by Democrats and their allies in the press.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.