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The doctor urged them to 'terminate,' but ChatGPT saw what the doctor missed
When Polina Pompliano, journalist and founder of The Profile, and her husband went to the doctor for an ultrasound, they expected to see images and hear the heartbeat of their third child. Instead, they were shocked to learn they were having identical twins and heartbroken to learn that the pregnancy was 'ultra-high risk' and that "most people" in that situation would have an abortion. But when Pompliano returned home, traumatized and full of fear, she felt the "impulse" to look at her ultrasounds again. After checking with ChatGPT, she realized her doctor had made a huge mistake that could have cost her babies their lives.
Polina Pompliano and her husband were pregnant with what they thought was their third baby.
At an appointment, an ultrasound revealed they were expecting identical twins.
The doctor, however, told the couple that the babies didn't have a membrane separating them, which made the pregnancy very high risk. She told them most people would abort.
When she got home, Pompliano felt something inside her tell her to look at the ultrasounds again. When she did, she saw a faint line.
She uploaded the images to ChatGPT, which told her that the line was the membrane that the doctor couldn't find.
The doctor later admitted the mistake, but Pompliano switched practices, had a healthy pregnancy, and gave birth to two boys who are now a year old.
The trauma she endured caused her to begin catastrophising, constantly worrying about what could happen.
Now, when she feels herself worrying, she reminds herself that 'right now, everything is okay'.
In an essay, Pompliano explained that in February 2025, she and her husband "went to the doctor expecting the routine excitement of hearing a heartbeat for the first time. Instead, we discovered I was pregnant with identical twins. Shock. Disbelief. Excitement. The celebration lasted less than a minute."
The doctor continued to scan the babies for about 10-15 minutes. It was clear to Pompliano that she was looking for something. Finally, she explained that she couldn't find the membrane that should be separating the babies. If there wasn't a membrane, the high-risk twin pregnancy would become "extraordinarily high risk," wrote Pompliano. She continued:
I immediately started shaking because the energy in the room had changed so dramatically. She explained that without a membrane, the babies would likely be born extremely prematurely and could face severe neurological complications.
Then she said the sentence I still have nightmares about: “This is the time when most people choose to terminate the pregnancy.”
Pompliano said she began to feel "a strange cocktail of dread, grief, anger, disbelief, and a physical nausea that made me feel like I might collapse."
In an interview months later, she shared that those words from the doctor still "haunt" her.
Pompliano and her husband took the ultrasound images and went home, where she stuffed them in a drawer and sat on the couch.
"After a few minutes, I felt an overwhelming urge to look at them again. I still can't explain where that impulse came from. All I can say is that I believe in God, and I believe something beyond me got me off that couch," she wrote.
When she looked at the ultrasound pictures again, she noticed a faint curved line with her "non-doctor eye." She saw it on one image after the next and began Googling ultrasound images of twins who share an amniotic sac like hers. Those images looked just like the images she was holding in her hands.
Not knowing what to think or how she could see something that the doctor couldn't, she decided to upload the images to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT said that the faint curved line was, in fact, the membrane the doctor couldn't find.
"My immediate reaction was that it had to be wrong," she said. "There was simply no way a machine had spotted something that an experienced physician had spent ten minutes looking for. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I barely slept that night. The next morning, I uploaded the ultrasound to the patient portal and asked the doctor what the line represented."
Walking outside, she saw herself in a window reflection and thought, "I looked awful." She continued:
Then, almost as if the words weren't mine, I heard this sentence in my brain: "In this moment, everything is okay."
She felt a sense of peace as she realized that everything really was okay. Nothing bad had happened yet. Not really. Her twins were alive and well. There was only the possibility that something might go wrong in the future.
Her doctor called her later that day and admitted that she had made a mistake.
"Normally I’m quick to forgive people," wrote Pompliano. "This time, let me tell you, it was hard. It wasn’t that she had missed something — obviously doctors are human. It was the casualness with which she delivered the news and the complete absence of an apology. I could feel my blood pressure rising as one thought repeated in my head: 'You robbed me of the best day of my life.'”
After switching OB/GYN practices, her pregnancy continued safely. Pompliano and the babies were monitored closely, and she gave birth at 36 weeks and four days to baby boys.
Yet throughout the pregnancy, even with reassurances from her new doctors, she caught herself worrying about bad things that hadn't occurred. She "was constantly living inside second- and third-order consequences of events that hadn't happened — and, as it turned out, never would."
As she began to panic at one of the appointments, her doctor reassured her, "Right now, everything looks good."
She got goosebumps hearing those words again.
"I’ve thought about those words often over the past year because I’ve realized they apply to more than just pregnancy," she said. "Whenever my mind starts catastrophizing about work, my family, my health, or the future, I notice that I’m almost always trying to solve problems that don’t exist. I’m fearful about a future I haven’t lived."
Catastrophizing can be an effect of PTSD, which a traumatic experience like the one she went through can cause. According to Psychology Today, "As adults, individuals with a history of trauma may find themselves catastrophizing when faced with situations that feel similar to their past experiences... These moments can trigger emotional memories, pulling them into a mindset shaped by fear and unresolved pain."
As explained by Priory Group, "Someone with PTSD might view their trauma as evidence the worst-case scenario can occur, leading to catastrophised thinking." For people who have this tendency, having a traumatic experience means they are 274% more likely to develop PTSD, according to a study from Clinical Psychological Science.
Pompliano said she now knows that while bad things can and do happen, there is a "massive difference between preparing for reality and suffering through imagination."
Pompliano's traumatic experience never had to happen. And it didn't happen because her doctor made a mistake. She explained that it happened because of how the doctor handled it.
The doctor "turned on the bright overhead lights, looked directly at us, and said, 'Let's talk'" before telling the couple that their situation was so bad that "most people" in their shoes choose to "terminate," as if it were normal and not a big deal to abort the babies you were so excited about just minutes before.
Parents of children with health conditions such as Down syndrome have reported similar experiences in which doctors paint a grim picture or focus on the worst-case scenario and immediately advise or even expect abortion. One mother shared that her doctor scheduled an abortion without her consent after her daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18.
Abortion has become so normalized that even women who don't want abortions feel as though they should have them. Prenatal testing, and even now-standard ultrasounds, are being used to seek out potential issues to target babies for abortion.
"High-risk" doesn't mean that the worst will happen. And 'the worst' isn't a disability or a health condition; the worst thing that could happen is the baby's death. Abortion ensures that.
Pompliano's words that 'right now, everything is okay' must be understood by every parent facing fears about their preborn babies based on predictions that haven't come true.
But even if the predictions do come true... even if a preborn child is diagnosed with a health condition or the pregnancy does face a major complication, there is never a need to have an abortion.
Induced abortion is the direct and intentional killing of preborn children. It's making the worst happen out of fear of the worst happening. In an emergency, doctors can deliver babies without intentionally killing them.
Every baby is worth fighting for, and every mother deserves a doctor who will do everything in their power to ensure their babies are treated with respect and given the best medical care possible.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
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·Human Interest·By Nancy Flanders
The doctor urged them to 'terminate,' but ChatGPT saw what the doctor missed
When Polina Pompliano, journalist and founder of The Profile, and her husband went to the doctor for an ultrasound, they expected to see images and hear the heartbeat of their third child. Instead, they were shocked to learn they were having identical twins and heartbroken to learn that the pregnancy was 'ultra-high risk' and that "most people" in that situation would have an abortion. But when Pompliano returned home, traumatized and full of fear, she felt the "impulse" to look at her ultrasounds again. After checking with ChatGPT, she realized her doctor had made a huge mistake that could have cost her babies their lives.
Polina Pompliano and her husband were pregnant with what they thought was their third baby.
At an appointment, an ultrasound revealed they were expecting identical twins.
The doctor, however, told the couple that the babies didn't have a membrane separating them, which made the pregnancy very high risk. She told them most people would abort.
When she got home, Pompliano felt something inside her tell her to look at the ultrasounds again. When she did, she saw a faint line.
She uploaded the images to ChatGPT, which told her that the line was the membrane that the doctor couldn't find.
The doctor later admitted the mistake, but Pompliano switched practices, had a healthy pregnancy, and gave birth to two boys who are now a year old.
The trauma she endured caused her to begin catastrophising, constantly worrying about what could happen.
Now, when she feels herself worrying, she reminds herself that 'right now, everything is okay'.
In an essay, Pompliano explained that in February 2025, she and her husband "went to the doctor expecting the routine excitement of hearing a heartbeat for the first time. Instead, we discovered I was pregnant with identical twins. Shock. Disbelief. Excitement. The celebration lasted less than a minute."
The doctor continued to scan the babies for about 10-15 minutes. It was clear to Pompliano that she was looking for something. Finally, she explained that she couldn't find the membrane that should be separating the babies. If there wasn't a membrane, the high-risk twin pregnancy would become "extraordinarily high risk," wrote Pompliano. She continued:
I immediately started shaking because the energy in the room had changed so dramatically. She explained that without a membrane, the babies would likely be born extremely prematurely and could face severe neurological complications.
Then she said the sentence I still have nightmares about: “This is the time when most people choose to terminate the pregnancy.”
Pompliano said she began to feel "a strange cocktail of dread, grief, anger, disbelief, and a physical nausea that made me feel like I might collapse."
In an interview months later, she shared that those words from the doctor still "haunt" her.
Pompliano and her husband took the ultrasound images and went home, where she stuffed them in a drawer and sat on the couch.
"After a few minutes, I felt an overwhelming urge to look at them again. I still can't explain where that impulse came from. All I can say is that I believe in God, and I believe something beyond me got me off that couch," she wrote.
When she looked at the ultrasound pictures again, she noticed a faint curved line with her "non-doctor eye." She saw it on one image after the next and began Googling ultrasound images of twins who share an amniotic sac like hers. Those images looked just like the images she was holding in her hands.
Not knowing what to think or how she could see something that the doctor couldn't, she decided to upload the images to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT said that the faint curved line was, in fact, the membrane the doctor couldn't find.
"My immediate reaction was that it had to be wrong," she said. "There was simply no way a machine had spotted something that an experienced physician had spent ten minutes looking for. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I barely slept that night. The next morning, I uploaded the ultrasound to the patient portal and asked the doctor what the line represented."
Walking outside, she saw herself in a window reflection and thought, "I looked awful." She continued:
Then, almost as if the words weren't mine, I heard this sentence in my brain: "In this moment, everything is okay."
She felt a sense of peace as she realized that everything really was okay. Nothing bad had happened yet. Not really. Her twins were alive and well. There was only the possibility that something might go wrong in the future.
Her doctor called her later that day and admitted that she had made a mistake.
"Normally I’m quick to forgive people," wrote Pompliano. "This time, let me tell you, it was hard. It wasn’t that she had missed something — obviously doctors are human. It was the casualness with which she delivered the news and the complete absence of an apology. I could feel my blood pressure rising as one thought repeated in my head: 'You robbed me of the best day of my life.'”
After switching OB/GYN practices, her pregnancy continued safely. Pompliano and the babies were monitored closely, and she gave birth at 36 weeks and four days to baby boys.
Yet throughout the pregnancy, even with reassurances from her new doctors, she caught herself worrying about bad things that hadn't occurred. She "was constantly living inside second- and third-order consequences of events that hadn't happened — and, as it turned out, never would."
As she began to panic at one of the appointments, her doctor reassured her, "Right now, everything looks good."
She got goosebumps hearing those words again.
"I’ve thought about those words often over the past year because I’ve realized they apply to more than just pregnancy," she said. "Whenever my mind starts catastrophizing about work, my family, my health, or the future, I notice that I’m almost always trying to solve problems that don’t exist. I’m fearful about a future I haven’t lived."
Catastrophizing can be an effect of PTSD, which a traumatic experience like the one she went through can cause. According to Psychology Today, "As adults, individuals with a history of trauma may find themselves catastrophizing when faced with situations that feel similar to their past experiences... These moments can trigger emotional memories, pulling them into a mindset shaped by fear and unresolved pain."
As explained by Priory Group, "Someone with PTSD might view their trauma as evidence the worst-case scenario can occur, leading to catastrophised thinking." For people who have this tendency, having a traumatic experience means they are 274% more likely to develop PTSD, according to a study from Clinical Psychological Science.
Pompliano said she now knows that while bad things can and do happen, there is a "massive difference between preparing for reality and suffering through imagination."
Pompliano's traumatic experience never had to happen. And it didn't happen because her doctor made a mistake. She explained that it happened because of how the doctor handled it.
The doctor "turned on the bright overhead lights, looked directly at us, and said, 'Let's talk'" before telling the couple that their situation was so bad that "most people" in their shoes choose to "terminate," as if it were normal and not a big deal to abort the babies you were so excited about just minutes before.
Parents of children with health conditions such as Down syndrome have reported similar experiences in which doctors paint a grim picture or focus on the worst-case scenario and immediately advise or even expect abortion. One mother shared that her doctor scheduled an abortion without her consent after her daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18.
Abortion has become so normalized that even women who don't want abortions feel as though they should have them. Prenatal testing, and even now-standard ultrasounds, are being used to seek out potential issues to target babies for abortion.
"High-risk" doesn't mean that the worst will happen. And 'the worst' isn't a disability or a health condition; the worst thing that could happen is the baby's death. Abortion ensures that.
Pompliano's words that 'right now, everything is okay' must be understood by every parent facing fears about their preborn babies based on predictions that haven't come true.
But even if the predictions do come true... even if a preborn child is diagnosed with a health condition or the pregnancy does face a major complication, there is never a need to have an abortion.
Induced abortion is the direct and intentional killing of preborn children. It's making the worst happen out of fear of the worst happening. In an emergency, doctors can deliver babies without intentionally killing them.
Every baby is worth fighting for, and every mother deserves a doctor who will do everything in their power to ensure their babies are treated with respect and given the best medical care possible.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Newsroom
·Human Interest
Bridget Sielicki
·Human Interest
Bridget Sielicki
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Bridget Sielicki
·Human Interest
Bridget Sielicki
·Investigative
Nancy Flanders
·Investigative
Nancy Flanders
·Politics
Nancy Flanders
·Issues
Nancy Flanders
·Issues
Nancy Flanders
·