ProPublica’s Kavitha Surana andZiva Branstetter both accused pro-life laws in Georgia of being responsible for the tragic deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Thurman. Surana wrote how Miller was told having another baby “could kill her” since she was diagnosed with lupus, diabetes, and hypertension at age 41. But when she found herself “unintentionally” pregnant in 2022, Surana claimed “Georgia’s new abortion ban gave her no choice” but to order abortion pills online and end her pregnancy alone at home.
Miller experienced severe complications shortly after taking the drugs, but did not go to the hospital “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.” Before long, she passed away. A similar story was told on behalf of Thurman, with Branstetter writing that Georgia’s pro-life laws caused her to wait “20 hours” before going to the hospital for a procedure after taking the abortion drugs before she ended up dying.
Those in the pro-abortion camp have been quick to say these deaths were “preventable,” if only Georgia’s pro-life laws hadn’t been in place. On Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins emphasized how “Vice President Kamala Harris, with help from the legacy media,” has pushed this “talking point that the deaths of” Miller and Thurman “were caused by their state’s pro-life laws.”
But as Perkins went on to say, “this narrative ignores both the details of the medical care received by both women, as well as the inherent dangers posed by chemical abortion drugs being sent through the mail as a result of the policies by the Biden-Harris administration.” Those crucial details are often covered up, he contended, which is why “the pro-life medical community has been sounding the alarm regarding the dangers of the abortion drugs for years.”
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The ProPublica articles “immediately placed the blame on Georgia’s pro-life laws,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, Charlotte Lozier Institute’s vice president of Medical Affairs and a board certified OBGYN, on Wednesday’s episode. But in the case of these women, “the reality is [they] died of sepsis following [the use of] mifepristone and misoprostol,” the abortion pills that currently include an FDA warning to doctors that the drugs can cause “unusual sepsis that can kill women.” As Skop observed, “this virulent and aggressive infection” has been the cause of “dozens of women” dying.
However, she continued, “the FDA … has progressively removed so many safeguards on these drugs,” which can now easily “be ordered online” or “delivered through the mail.” This “do it yourself abortion” means women are “medically unsupervised,” Skop said, so that “when complications happen” — and they do happen for “at least one out of 20 women” — they “have nowhere to turn.”
But according to Skop, “[T]he changes the FDA made were all prior to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade,” which means “allowing these drugs to be readily available was not a response to the Dobbs decision.” Rather, she added, it “was the plan all along. And they have never seemed to care about the women who’ve been harmed.” Instead, Skop argued, what “we’ve seen since the Dobbs decision [is] that abortion advocates have pointed at these laws” and “misinformed the American public … intentionally stirred up confusion and fear mongering among doctors,” and “failed to explain the laws” properly.
The result of the rhetoric surrounding the cases of Miller and Thurman is “confusion with women” thinking they “would be prosecuted for seeking abortion,” she pointed out. And “part of that confusion,” Perkins interjected, is coming “from the vice president.” And “we heard it again yesterday in this committee hearing in the Senate that doctors in these pro-life states like Georgia are prohibited from doing miscarriage care” — a statement that is “absolutely untrue,” Skop stated.
Skop was quick to clarify that even though “the ProPublica article … said that a D&C is illegal … a D&C is just a method of providing medical care,” which is allowed in Georgia. “What is illegal is ending human life electively.” Ultimately, she emphasized, “the Georgia law allowed the doctors to do whatever they” needed to do, and the death of those women were really due to the “dangerous [abortion] drugs.”
The laws in Georgia have exceptions “for miscarriage management” and “ectopic management,” Skop explained. The push to claim otherwise “just shows, honestly, the desperation of pro-abortion ideologues that they feel they have to lie so blatantly in order to deceive the American public.” Perkins posed the question: “[A]re you saying that the pro-abortion rhetoric, the rhetoric coming from the vice president and the Democratic Party, is actually causing women to die?”
Skop responded, “It is deadly. It’s the lies, not the laws, that are causing these deaths.” It’s “a dangerous game they’re playing that they would be willing to risk the lives of American women in order to promote their political ideology” — a reality Perkins noted was “very troubling,” though “not surprising.” And this is why “it’s crucial that we get the truth out,” Skop concluded. “Doctors can do whatever they need to do to protect women’s lives, and they should continue to do that.”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.
