Georgia Woman Dies After Delayed Treatment of Abortion Pill Complications
Remember this meme?
When media outlets make biased decisions about what stories to cover or not cover, it activates the availability heuristic, a common logical fallacy. That’s why it’s important to rely on data, not anecdotes – especially when it comes to matters of health.
The data tell us that maternal health in the United States is far worse than in economically similar nations. This is a serious problem that goes back decades, and it got even worse during COVID.
Thankfully, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that we are seeing some improvement. American maternal deaths – defined to include deaths related to abortion, miscarriage, or childbirth – have fallen to their pre-COVID level. The rate today is equal to the rate in September 2019.
So why does it seem like maternal mortality is getting worse?
Dobbs was not the start of women dying from negligent pregnancy care. But it was the start of journalists having an ideological incentive to cover those deaths (if they happen in pro-life states).
[Read more – Doctor delayed emergency care for my ectopic pregnancy…in pro-abortion New York.]
In the decade preceding Dobbs, an average of 4.3 women died in legal abortions every year. We wrote in November of 2022:
The abortion industry and its supporters do not want to talk about those women. They are collateral damage in the ideological crusade for “safe and legal” abortion on demand. Those women don’t get front-page obituaries. They’re lucky if the news covers their deaths at all.
But you can bet that as soon as a woman dies of anything that could even remotely be attributed to a denied abortion, our mainstream media will exploit her death and blame the pro-life movement. We saw how the manipulation worked in Ireland. Since it was successful there, why wouldn’t they try it here?
Our prediction has come to pass. Monday, ProPublica published an article attributing the death of Amber Nicole Thurman to Georgia’s pro-life laws.
Thurman legally obtained abortion pills in North Carolina to end the lives of her unborn twins. Five days later, after returning to her native Georgia, she experienced a serious complication: some of her babies’ remains were still in the uterus, and she was developing an infection.
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.
Accordingly, when Thurman went to the emergency room on the night of August 18, 2022, “doctors started Thurman on antibiotics and an IV drip” and “[t]he OB-GYN noted the possibility of doing a D&C the next day.” D&C stands for dilation and curettage, the surgical procedure that would have removed the twins’ remains from the uterus.
But the next morning came and went with no surgery. Doctors gave more IV fluid, escalated antibiotics, administered a blood pressure medication, tested her for pneumonia and STDs, and kept talking about – but not actually performing – the D&C.
By the time she finally went into the operating room, doctors determined she needed a hysterectomy. They also noticed serious blood flow problems to the bowel, which may have been a side effect of the blood pressure medication.
Thurman died on the table.
ProPublica allows that “[i]t is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C,” but quickly jumps to the implication that Georgia’s heartbeat law was to blame. The article focuses on alleged ambiguities in the medical emergency exception. But without any detectable fetal heartbeats, that exception didn’t even need to come into play.
Meanwhile ProPublica is not so meticulous about the role of abortion pills themselves in Thurman’s death. Abortion supporters assure us that not only abortion pills but also telehealth abortions and self-managed abortions are “safe and effective.” The abortion clinic that gave Thurman the pills did not, as far as ProPublica reports, require any in-person follow-up to confirm a complete abortion, nor did they stay in contact with Thurman after handing her pills and sending her on her way.
An expert committee found that Thurman’s death was preventable. I wholeheartedly agree.
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