An article in ProPublica claims that the death of a young mother is directly due to a pro-life law in Georgia protecting preborn children from abortion. In the article, author Kavitha Surana also announces plans to continue attempting to blame pro-life laws for women’s abortion deaths. (Read Live Action News’ fact check of ProPublica’s attempt to blame Georgia’s pro-life laws for the death of another woman, Candi Miller, here.)
Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June of 2022 in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Amber Thurman, a single mother, discovered she was pregnant with twins. But Georgia’s heartbeat law, protecting preborn children at about six weeks, had gone into effect — so Thurman traveled to North Carolina seeking a surgical abortion. Due to a delay, she was instead offered the abortion pill regimen. She was nine weeks pregnant at the time.
There are some key things to note here, which ProPublica either didn’t admit or buried within the story, underneath a misleading title, along with a paragraph that reads, “… ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others.”
This is false.
Here are four facts that ProPublica didn’t tell their readers:
1. D&Cs are not illegal in Georgia unless used to intentionally kill a child in the womb.
2. Sepsis is a known risk of the abortion pill, which has a black box warning, despite claims that it is “safer than Tylenol.”
3. ProPublica’s blaming of the pro-life law is speculation; the doctors never explained why a D&C was not performed quickly.
4. ProPublica isn’t being honest about Georgia’s pro-life law.
FACT #1: D&Cs aren’t illegal in any state unless used to intentionally kill a child in the womb.
Among other claims, the article’s author argued that dilation and curettage (D&C) is a felony in Georgia, which is demonstrably false, writing that Georgia “had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions.” Notably, a D&C is a gynecological procedure used to diagnose and treat numerous uterine conditions (as well as miscarriage when medically warranted) and is not merely used for induced abortion procedures.
It is falsehoods like this one that mislead women into believing that every D&C is an abortion and that every D&C procedure — regardless of what it’s for — is illegal under pro-life laws. D&Cs are not prohibited. Deliberately killing a baby using a D&C procedure is.
These lies have the potential to be both emotionally destructive and physically harmful to women.
FACT #2: Sepsis is a known but ‘rare’ risk of the abortion pill, and is listed in a black box warning.
While abortion pills are often framed as being safe, they are actually more dangerous for women than first-trimester surgical abortions. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have found that women are at risk of severe side effects after taking abortion pills, including hemorrhage, surgical intervention, and death. Chemical abortions are four times more dangerous than first-trimester surgical abortions. The FDA’s 2023 mifepristone label showed a range of 2.9 to 4.6 percent of women report to the ER for complications as a result. Another study showed that 6% of women visited either an urgent care or an ER due to abortion pill complications.
At the unnamed North Carolina facility, Thurman took the first pill, drove four hours home to Georgia, and took the second pill the next day as instructed. It is unclear what, if any, information Thurman received about the risks of the abortion pill. However, mifepristone (the first drug in the abortion pill regimen) comes with a “black box warning.”
This warning was updated in 2023, but below is the warning as shown from 2019 until its 2023 update — the very warning Thurman’s prescriber should have received and passed along to her. It notes that “patients with serious bacterial infections and sepsis can present without fever, bacteremia or significant findings on pelvic examination. A high index of suspicion is needed to rule out serious infection and sepsis.” In addition, “Prolonged heavy bleeding may be a sign of incomplete abortion or other complications and prompt medical or surgical intervention may be needed.”
Abortion Pill Mifeprex Black Box Warning (2019 label from FDA)
Prescribers are instructed to “inform the patient about these risks. Ensure the patient knows whom to call and what to do if she experiences sustained fever, severe abdominal pain, prolonged heavy bleeding, or syncope, or if she experiences abdominal pain or discomfort or general malaise for more than 24 hours after taking misoprostol [the second drug in the abortion pill regimen].” Then, the prescriber should “Advise the patient to take the MEDICATION GUIDE with her if she visits an emergency room or another healthcare provider who did not prescribe MIFEPREX, so that provider knows she is undergoing a medical abortion.”
Despite media and abortion industry claims that the abortion pill is “safer than Tylenol,” Viagra, or penicillin, these claims have been proven false.
FACT #3: ProPublica’s blaming of the pro-life law is speculation, as doctors haven’t explained why a D&C was not immediately performed.
Thurman began experiencing complications quickly, and approximately four days after taking the regimen, things got much worse:
On the evening of Aug. 18, Thurman vomited blood and passed out at home, according to 911 call logs. Her boyfriend called for an ambulance. Thurman arrived at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge at 6:51 p.m.
Thurman, it was determined, was experiencing sepsis. She had apparently waited days before seeking emergency care, and it is not known if she reached out to the abortion facility or to other medical professionals beforehand. The signs were unmistakable:
Her lower abdomen was tender, according to the summary. Her white blood cell count was critically high and her blood pressure perilously low — at one point, as Thurman got up to go to the bathroom, she fainted again and hit her head. Doctors noted a foul odor during a pelvic exam, and an ultrasound showed possible tissue in her uterus.
The standard treatment of sepsis is to start antibiotics and immediately seek and remove the source of the infection. For a septic abortion, that would include removing any remaining tissue from the uterus. One of the hospital network’s own practices describes a D&C as a “fairly common, minor surgical procedure” to be used after a miscarriage to remove fetal tissue.
After assessing her at 9:38 p.m., doctors started Thurman on antibiotics and an IV drip, the summary said. The OB-GYN noted the possibility of doing a D&C the next day.
But that didn’t happen the following morning, even when an OB diagnosed “acute severe sepsis.” By 5:14 a.m., Thurman was breathing rapidly and at risk of bleeding out, according to her vital signs. Even five liters of IV fluid had not moved her blood pressure out of the danger zone. Doctors escalated the antibiotics.
But instead of performing a D&C for this clear emergency situation, doctors waited while continuing to administer antibiotics and other drugs. By the time they eventually got her into an operating room, she was in organ failure. A hysterectomy was performed in an effort to save her life, but she didn’t survive the surgery.
ProPublica acknowledged that a hospital review found that performing a D&C earlier could have potentially saved Thurman’s life, and the summary report made it clear that doctors discussed intervening several times before finally taking her into surgery.
ProPublica also acknowledges that, despite blaming the pro-life law, “Doctors and a nurse involved in Thurman’s care declined to explain their thinking and did not respond to questions from ProPublica.”
In other words, ProPublica is entirely speculating that this woman’s delay in care was due to the state’s law. In addition, ProPublica is misleading readers about the text of the law itself.
FACT #4: ProPublica isn’t being honest about Georgia’s pro-life law.
Despite all of this information — the black box warning on the abortion pill, the assessment of sepsis, and the start of antibiotics — somehow, the blame for Thurman’s death was laid squarely at the feet of Georgia’s pro-life law. ProPublica claimed:
[The law] prohibits doctors from using any instrument “with the purpose of terminating a pregnancy.”
Whoa, hold on just a minute, there. The author has omitted some important parts of the law, which states (emphases added):
A person commits the offense of criminal abortion when, in violation of Code Section 16-12-141, he or she administers any medicine, drugs, or other substance whatever to any woman or when he or she uses any instrument or other means whatever upon any woman with intent to produce a miscarriage or abortion.
Hmm. That doesn’t sound like what ProPublica claimed. But let’s keep looking…. “Abortion” is defined in the law as:
… the act of using, prescribing, or administering any instrument, substance, device, or other means with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy with knowledge that termination will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child.
Ah, so in actuality, the law does NOT prohibit doctors from using any instrument “with the purpose of terminating a pregnancy,” as ProPublica claimed, but with the purpose of terminating a pregnancy with a “reasonable likelihood [of] caus[ing] the death of an unborn child.”
Yikes, that omission seems… pretty dishonest.
ProPublica adds:
While removing fetal tissue is not terminating a pregnancy, medically speaking, the law only specifies it’s not considered an abortion to remove “a dead unborn child” that resulted from a “spontaneous abortion” defined as “naturally occurring” from a miscarriage or a stillbirth.
Thurman had told doctors her miscarriage was not spontaneous — it was the result of taking pills to terminate her pregnancy.
But was this even relevant at the time, given Thurman’s dire condition and obvious indications of sepsis? No. The law also states: “No abortion is authorized or shall be performed if an unborn child has been determined in accordance with Code Section 31-9B-2 to have a detectable human heartbeat except when: A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that a medical emergency exists…”
And the law defines “medical emergency” as “a condition in which an abortion is necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
Sepsis is quite obviously life-threatening and would most certainly qualify as a “medical emergency.” And therefore, whether or not Thurman’s condition was the result of a natural miscarriage or induced abortion was irrelevant to her care.
Because of her life-threatening condition, the law would have allowed even an induced abortion on a yet-living preborn child in such a case.
This story about Amber Thurman’s death from sepsis after taking the abortion pill, while heartbreaking and tragic, was not the fault of Georgia’s pro-life law. This ProPublica article is an extreme example of biased journalism.
Editor’s Note: Read a related guest post by abortion malpractice attorney Michael Seibel on the Thurman case here. A GoFundMe has been created by Amber Thurman’s family, to help support her surviving son, here.
