ProPublica twists the story of Ciji Graham

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New ProPublica article: “A Pregnant Woman at Risk of Heart Failure Couldn’t Get Urgent Treatment. She Died Waiting for an Abortion.” This is the story of Ciji Graham. She was 6 weeks pregnant in North Carolina, where abortion is fully legal up until 12 weeks.

On November 14th, 2023, she went to see a cardiologist because she was having a heart rhythm problem, AFib, or atrial fibrillation. A lot of times doctors can fix that with what’s called cardioversion, which is basically an electric shock to get your heart rhythm correct again. Important to note that expert consensus on the management of these kinds of problems in pregnancy says that “cardioversion is safe and effective during pregnancy.” Despite this, the cardiologist she went to see did not offer cardioversion, apparently because she was pregnant.

The next day, November 15th, 2023, Graham went to see a second cardiologist. This one gave her a blood thinner but did not check her heart rate and told her to come back in three weeks if it was still a problem.

That same day, Graham called the local abortion clinic and scheduled an abortion appointment for about two weeks later, November 28th.

But she never made it to that appointment because a few days later, on November 19th, her partner found her dead at home, and the medical examiner’s office ruled that the cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia due to atrial fibrillation in the context of recent pregnancy.

So why didn’t the first or second cardiologist give her cardioversion and fix her heart rhythm problem? The experts ProPublica consulted said they think it comes down to gaps in education. There was a survey developed with the American College of Cardiology that found that less than 30% of cardiologists reported formal training in managing heart conditions in pregnancy.

So, despite:

1. cardioversion being safe during pregnancy,
2. elective abortion being legal in North Carolina
3. the abortion clinic telling ProPublica that even if they had known about Graham’s condition they would not have provided an abortion because it wasn’t safe,
4. the cardiologists involved in her care saying nothing about abortion laws, and
5. ProPublica’s own experts saying cardiologists are undertrained to manage conditions during pregnancy. Despite all that…

ProPublica still tries to frame this as a story about abortion access.

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