FACT CHECK: Georgia woman complains about pro-life law, despite the abortion she received

A recent hit piece against a pro-life law — this one from USA TODAY — features the story of a woman who was given an abortion in a pro-life state. Despite the fact that she received appropriate medical care that is standard in every state, did not die, and received an abortion, the media is still exploiting her story for pro-abortion political gain.

The article makes it quite obvious that the pro-abortion media attacks against pro-life laws have nothing to do with protecting women’s lives and everything to do with exploiting tragic stories to gain support for abortion among sympathetic American voters. The article also implies that doctors in pro-life states do not know how to care for women — and that the doctors of this particular woman (Avery Davis Bell) failed her by not providing her with an immediate abortion.

But there are holes in the story.

Georgia’s Life Act protects preborn babies from abortion once a heartbeat is detectable (at about six weeks, though the heart begins beating and pumping blood about 21-23 days post-fertilization), but it allows induced abortion at any point in pregnancy in cases of medical emergency — meaning that if a pregnant woman is facing a medical crisis, doctors have the legal right to directly and intentionally kill her baby. The state’s pro-life 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.” The law clearly states that it is the “physician” who “determines, in reasonable medical judgment” whether a woman’s health concern is an emergency.

In addition, there is a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion in Georgia — except in an emergency. This is important to note, especially in this particular case.

At a Glance:

• Bell’s pregnancy was considered high risk due to a subchorionic hemorrhage that required weekly monitoring. At 16 weeks, doctors were concerned about her hemoglobin levels. Bell claims that the doctors’ concern was that she would experience a hemolytic crisis which would require the pregnancy to end.

• Treatment for Bell’s condition includes things like complete bed rest and other monitoring, but induced abortion (which carries the goal of ending the child’s life) is not among those treatments.

• Bell was put on complete bed rest and violated the bed rest to participate in early voting. Later that day, she was hospitalized and her water broke at the hospital (preterm premature rupture of membranes).

• Standard protocols for PPROM include medication to halt labor, antibiotics to prevent infection and monitoring for signs of infection, and if all else fails, helping labor along if it cannot be halted. No mention is made if any of these standard protocols were attempted in Bell’s case.

• Though Bell had no infection and doctors stated there was no emergency and her life was not at risk, doctors chose to perform a D&E abortion, which involved dismembering Bell’s living child, instead of allowing enough dilation to occur to allow him to be born intact. At 18 weeks, he would have been too young to survive, but an early delivery in this case would not have been considered an abortion.

Here’s what happened

According to USA TODAY, 34-year-old Avery Davis Bell was pregnant with her second son and building the family she and her husband “had dreamed of.” At seven weeks, ultrasounds revealed Bell had a subchorionic hemorrhage — bleeding between the uterine wall and the chorion membrane, which is the membrane that attaches the amniotic sac to the uterine wall. It’s the most common cause of vaginal bleeding during the first trimester.

While most instances will resolve on their own, a subchorionic bleed can increase the chances of pregnancy complications, according to the Cleveland Clinic, including excess bleeding, miscarriage, preterm delivery, and placental abruption. Treatment is about preventing these complications and includes a reduction in daily activities such as exercise and heavy lifting, complete bed rest, avoidance of sex, monitoring for signs of early labor, hospitalization, anti-D immune globulin for people who are RhD negative, and continued ultrasounds.

Bell’s bleed was “significantly larger than is usually expected,” so her doctors monitored her every two weeks with testing and ultrasounds, keeping a close eye on her. The bleeding remained stable until 16 weeks. At that point, Bell began experiencing heavier bleeding, and her hemoglobin levels began to drop, which has several potential causes and treatments. At this point, she was in and out of the hospital.

“This was … when they brought up that in Georgia, they could not consider [abortion] until it was a case of life and death for me. And basically they said, ‘We have to talk about this because we’re in Georgia,'” she said.

Georgia allows induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a baby in the womb — in medical emergencies based on the doctor’s reasonable judgment. In Bell’s case, doctors determined that she was not currently experiencing an emergency but said they would consider committing an abortion if her condition became emergent. Bell was sent home on bed rest.

San Diego Perinatal Center, in the pro-abortion state of California, recommends the same preventative treatment options for subchoronic hematoma or hemorrhage that Bell’s doctors offered to her in pro-life Georgia. However, it also notes (emphasis added):

Women who have a large subchorionic clot or subchorionic hematoma diagnosed prior to 22 weeks’ gestation must consider the potential consequences of a decision to go forward with the pregnancy. They must accept the possibility that they will go on to a very premature birth, and that a surviving infant may not be neurologically or physically normal. 

It’s likely Bell was informed of this risk of preterm delivery. But despite this, Bell broke the prescribed bed rest so she could vote early in the presidential election. Later that day, she was hospitalized at Emory Decatur for the final time during this pregnancy.

She was anemic, hemorrhaging large blood clots, leaking amniotic fluid, and, after arriving at the hospital, her water broke. She was 18 weeks pregnant — and if labor started at that time, her baby would have been too young to survive. And, though USA TODAY lamented that she had to wait 20 hours for “life-saving medical care,” Bell’s life was actually still not in danger.

What happened next is surprising and confusing. USA TODAY reported that doctors told Bell her condition was not emergent enough to bypass the 24-hour waiting period, but since they had to wait for her to be artificially dilated anyway, they had her consent to an abortion.

“They were trying to get that paperwork signed so they could start the [24 hour waiting period] clock. If my life is definitely at risk, they could do it,” she said.

This makes no sense whatsoever. If Bell’s life were at risk, she wouldn’t have needed to wait 24 hours to end the pregnancy but yet, doctors were planning to commit the abortion after 24 hours while maintaining that her situation was not emergent. It doesn’t add up.

Plus, she’s not talking about delivering her son prematurely when she says, “[T]hey could do it.” She’s talking about killing her son. She claims her doctors believed a D&E (dilation and evacuation) dismemberment abortion was “the best course of action,” reported USA TODAY, because they would be able to “control the bleeding and keep me alive.” The person carrying out a D&E would use a Sopher clamp to grasp the arms and legs of her living baby boy and dismember him.

2nd Trimester Abortion | Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) | What Is Abortion?

But then, Bell was suddenly transferred to Emory Midtown before that 24-hour waiting period was up.

USA TODAY claims it was because Emory Midtown was better equipped to handle the situation. However, Emory Decatur has the notoriety of having delivered the most premature baby to have survived, after being born at just 21 weeks — the very hospital where Bell was originally being treated.

When Bell arrived at Emory Midtown, her hemoglobin had dropped further and she needed a blood transfusion. Doctors there then carried out the D&E procedure that intentionally and directly killed Bell’s living, 18-week son.

(The baby boy in the photo below, Greyson, was just a week older than Bell’s son when he was miscarried at 19 weeks gestation.)

What Emory Healthcare had to say

USA TODAY claims that Bell’s “medical team was confused about how to care for her without getting into legal trouble.” Yet, when asked by USA TODAY about abortion at its hospitals, Emory Healthcare said it “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws. Our top priorities continue to be the safety and well-being of the patients we serve.”

And that’s exactly what doctors did. They cared for Bell based on training and protocol and in the end, the pro-life law did not stop Bell from having an induced abortion that intentionally killed her son. Whether that abortion was necessary is another question. (In reality, it wasn’t necessary to dismember him, but doctors are allowed their “medical judgment” in such cases.) But she was not prevented from having an abortion, and doctors did not neglect her care.

This is a far cry from other stories being pushed by the media, in which they claim Georgia pro-life law makes it impossible for doctors to protect pregnant women.

Attacking other pro-life states

Since USA TODAY can’t argue that Georgia’s Life Act ‘killed Bell’ or even prevented her from having an induced abortion, the article extended the list of complaints to other pro-life states. “If I were in [pro-abortion] Massachusetts in the hospital, very little chance I would die,” claimed Bell. “If I were in Idaho, where they don’t have any OBs right now because the laws are so restrictive, (or) were I in Texas where they’re getting sued all the time, I might’ve died.”

But these bold claims are propaganda. Why would she have died in other pro-life states if she didn’t die in Georgia?

First, hospitals in Massachusetts list the same known courses of action for subchorionic hematoma and hemorrhage, as well as preterm premature rupture of membranes, that Bell’s doctors appear to have taken. And they don’t mention induced abortion.

As far as Bell’s claim that there are no OB/GYNs in Idaho because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she’s wrong. A report issued in 2022 shows that there were 178 doctors providing care to patients in the field of obstetrics and gynecology in Idaho in 2021. Yet, a report from the Idaho Coalition for Safe Health Care states the number of obstetricians in Idaho decreased from 227 in 2022 to about 176 in 2023.

In addition, the birth rate in Idaho has been declining since at least 2010 — from 14.8 per 1,000 people in 2010 to 11.5 in 2022. Declining birth rates have been a factor in the closing of maternity units at hospitals in Idaho since before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

A 2024 report shows that it isn’t just OB/GYN numbers that are declining. “The U.S. is projected to have 120,000 too few doctors nationally [by 2030],” it stated. In addition, Idaho ranks in the bottom half of all states for the number of primary care doctors and its overall physician supply. In fact, it’s 50th for overall physician supply. This does not appear to have anything to do with the state’s pro-life law.

As for Texas, the latest Induced Termination of Pregnancy (ITOP) report from Texas Health and Human Services shows that 119 abortions were committed in the state under the medical exception clause of its pro-life law during the first 24 months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And, to date, no doctor has been prosecuted for those abortions or faced lawsuits.

There was however, a lawsuit filed against Texas by 20 women who believed they should have been allowed to abort their babies in the state, despite there being no increased risk to their lives or health. The women behind Zurawski v. Texas wanted abortions for their babies who had received poor health diagnoses. The Texas Supreme Court ruled against them, reaffirming that discriminatory and eugenic abortions against babies with disabilities or health conditions are not allowed in Texas but that induced abortions are allowed in medical emergencies.

The claim that we “are putting doctors in impossible positions” is senseless and baseless. As Emory Healthcare and the Texas Supreme Court made clear: doctors understand pro-life laws and that those laws forbid the intentional and direct killing of innocent humans in the womb. They do not prohibit life-saving preterm deliveries.

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) noted that the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists  (ACOG) “defines induced abortion as ‘a medical intervention that ends a pregnancy such that it does not result in a live birth.’ This means that in order to qualify as an induced abortion, a medical intervention must both (1) end a pregnancy and (2) do so in a way that intends the death of the fetus or embryo,” and that “There are many interventions, such as miscarriage management, C-sections, and inductions of labor, that do not fall under this definition, even if they do not result in a live birth.” (emphasis added).

AAPLOG has noted that there are ethical ways to end a pregnancy without intentionally killing the preborn child. Read more here.

The real purpose of USA TODAY’s article

With each new mention of a woman suffering a tragic pregnancy circumstance, the abortion-supportive media continues to point to two Georgia women’s deaths (Amber Thurman and Candi Miller) after they obtained the abortion pill, as if Georgia’s pro-life law was definitively responsible. Live Action News has debunked both of these cases here, here, and here. Media outlets also point to the deaths of two women, Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica in Texas, who didn’t die because of the pro-life law but because of apparent medical neglect and failure to follow the standard of care.

Additionally, the pro-abortion media outlets that are looking into cases of pregnancy-related deaths have admitted to investigating such potential medical negligence in states only with more restrictive abortion laws — despite the fact that in a rare moment of honest journalism, the Associated Press admitted earlier this year that in its own analysis, “Serious violations that jeopardized a mother or her fetus’ heath occurred in states with and without abortion bans….”

In Bell’s case, she did not die and she was not denied an abortion.

USA TODAY’s coverage of Bell’s story only serves to further prove that these pro-abortion hit pieces have nothing to do with protecting women and everything to do with promoting abortion and confusing Americans.

Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.