ProPublica tries again: responding to claims about Porsha Ngumezi’s death
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Yet again, ProPublica releases an article blaming Texas’ abortion law for a case of maternal death: “A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.”
In short, Porsha Nguzemi goes to the ER after experiencing heavy bleeding from a miscarriage. OB Andrew Davis doesn’t see her until 7 hours later and gives her misoprostol instead of a D&C. After she dies, his notes claim her bleeding was minimal, contradicting nurses notes.
ProPublica’s narrative–that this situation is probably because Davis is afraid of abortion laws–is incoherent for several reasons:
- Texas abortion law allows intervention in medical emergencies.
- Texas abortion law explicitly states that removing embryonic or fetal remains after a miscarriage is not legally an abortion.
- Most relevant to this specific case: Texas abortion law applies equally to drugs and medications as it does to procedures or surgical interventions.
Davis administered misoprostol, which is no more or less an abortion than doing a D&C.
In order to make Nguzemi’s death about abortion laws, Propublica has to come up with some kind of narrative to explain why Davis would be afraid of procedures that could be misinterpreted as abortion but not afraid of administering abortion pills.
Their explanation? Misoprostol is commonly used for other obstetric situations other than abortion. That explanation doesn’t really help them here because D&Cs are also commonly used for obstetric situations besides abortion.
But we’ve long since seen that ProPublica isn’t trying to objectively investigate what’s going on. They’re just trying to find deaths they can blame on abortion laws.
Note, too, that the medical experts ProPublica consults for these stories are frequently hardcore abortion rights activists. In the Ngumezi article, ProPublica consults Dr. Daniel Grossman, describing him only as “a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco.” They neglect to mention Grossman is the director of ANSIRH (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health), an organization that advocates for abortion around the world. I guess ProPublica doesn’t consider that relevant context.
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