Did pro-choice lies kill Amber Thurman?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A woman in Georgia got a legal abortion, and it killed her. If this isn’t how you understand the tragic death of Amber Thurman, that’s because you have been misled by a Democratic Party desperate to politicize her death and by macabre media that believe defending abortion is more important than getting a story straight.
Vice President Kamala Harris , along with most of her party, is blaming Thurman’s death on Georgia’s law banning the abortion of babies who have a heartbeat. This lie, originated by liberal outlet ProPublica , is not only slander, it is also dangerous: It endangers the lives of other women who turn to the abortion pill to end their pregnancies.
Thurman, a single mother of a young boy, learned in the summer of 2022 that she was pregnant with twins. Concluding these children would disrupt “her newfound stability,” ProPublica explained , Thurman decided to abort them. When logistical problems derailed her plan of a surgical abortion, Thurman settled on a chemical abortion.
An abortion clinic in North Carolina gave her a mifepristone pill and sent her home with a second pill — misoprostol. These pills not only caused fetal demise — which is their purpose — they also killed Thurman.
The abortion pills killed Thurman because by killing her twins, they left her with two dead bodies inside her. Her body didn’t expel the entirety of their remains, and the result was sepsis, a common consequence of abortion pills.
Here’s how ProPublica described what happened to Thurman after her abortion :
“She had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body. She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.”
The hospital, for reasons never explained in the ProPublica article, didn’t get around to removing the remains for 20 hours. The sepsis had advanced too far at that point, and it killed her on the operating table.
ProPublica and Democrats assert that Thurman would have survived the consequences of her chemical abortion if not for the Georgia abortion law.
“Just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions,” the article states. “Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.”
The implication here is that Georgia’s law somehow prevented Piedmont Henry Hospital in Georgia from removing the remains of the dead Thurman twins from their mother. This is false.
It is not up for debate. It’s simply false.
There is no way to read Georgia’s law and believe that it bars a life-saving D&C of dead post-abortion human remains.
In 2019, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the LIFE Act, which banned most abortions after six weeks. When the Dobbs decision struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the law — already on the books for three years — went into effect.
The law’s definition of abortion is limited to procedures that “cause the death of an unborn child.”
Facially, this law does not apply when the unborn children are already dead, as they were when Thurman showed up at the hospital. A D&C to remove fetal remains is always legal in Georgia, whether the unborn child was aborted or suffered from spontaneous miscarriage.
Further, the state’s abortion ban very clearly does not apply to situations “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.”
And so even if the twins were still alive, a D&C would have been legal because the doctors presumably knew Thurman was in danger of death or serious impairment.
This isn’t ambiguous. Everyone who studied the law knew these facts about it. Take it from the Abortion Defense Network, whose briefing paper on Georgia abortion law states:
“Georgia law allows abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable [approximately six weeks] in cases where a physician determines in their ‘reasonable medical judgment’ that there is a ‘medical emergency.’ ”
The Abortion Defense Network further states: “treatment for miscarriage where there is no cardiac activity (including medications, D&C, D&E [dilation and extraction], labor induction) are not abortions under Georgia law and thus are not prohibited by its abortion ban. Miscarriage care is legal, so long as there is no cardiac activity. With respect to self-managed abortion, it is legal for providers to give medical care during or after a self-managed abortion provided there is no cardiac activity.”
Georgia law clearly allowed the hospital to provide the D&C that Thurman needed and that ProPublica falsely stated was illegal. Why did the hospital wait 20 hours after she arrived to take her to the operating room?
That’s the central question in Thurman’s case. Digging deeper suggests the blame for Thurman’s death lies not with pro-life laws but with pro-choice lies.
Since the Dobbs decision leaked in May 2022, abortion advocates and the news media have claimed that state abortion laws outlaw all sorts of things that aren’t abortion.
Abortion bans, the pro-choice commentators and reporters insist, make it illegal to get care after a miscarriage, to deal with an ectopic pregnancy, or to end a pregnancy in order to save a mother’s life. This is not true. Every state with an abortion ban includes a life-of-the-mother exception. The other confusions, intentional or not, rely on blurring the definition of abortion.
Critics of pro-life laws sow confusion by using the term abortion to mean three different things:
- Deliberately and directly ending the life of an embryo or fetus.
- Spontaneous miscarriage.
- Removing an already dead embryo or fetus from a woman’s uterus.
(There’s a fourth common usage of the term, which is delivering a live baby before it is viable, thus indirectly ending its life.)
Those second and third definitions of abortion fit within standard technical medical usage, but they are well outside the ordinary usage of the term. While any woman who has suffered a miscarriage might see on her medical records the notation of “spontaneous abortion,” the political and moral debates about abortion all involve the deliberate termination of in-utero life.
Abortion bans do not ban miscarriage treatment, but the pro-choice commentators want you to believe that, because they want to repeal these laws and legalize the deliberate taking of preborn life.
They need you to believe that laws about live babies apply to dead babies.
Conflating live babies with dead babies has been central to the post- Roe misinformation campaign. It’s fitting because the defense of abortion rests entirely on covering up the fact that what’s being terminated is a living girl or boy.
This is despicable not merely because it is false and dishonest, but because it could endanger pregnant women.
Did Thurman or her doctors believe, falsely, that Georgia’s law banned a post-abortion D&C? Did Thurman or her doctors believe that a life-saving D&C was illegal in Georgia?
That would explain why they didn’t move Thurman to the OR for 20 hours. If their mistake did cause her demise, then it’s not the fault of the Georgia law, which is unambiguous on these questions. It’s the fault of those who lied about abortion law.
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A woman in Georgia got a legal abortion, and it killed her.
That's the story. But Democrats need a talking point and created an entirely made up narrative to scare dumb voters. These are the same people who are outraged over Trump claiming Haitians are eating cats, even though this their lie is much more factually indefensible.
Let's back it up with facts. All the pro-choice liberals love facts, don't they?
I don't think facts matter much. There are people who think maternal deaths in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were caused by a law that didn't go in effect until December 2021. It makes as much sense as blaming an abortion ban for a death that occurred after a successful, legal abortion .
They've only proved that sex kills. Why not let government regulate sex the same way tobacco and alcohol are regulated?
It's the fault of the former 'president' and the bought and paid for 6 who reversed Roe v Wade who are responsible for her death.
To quote a hero of yours:
Elections have consequences.
Learn to live with it.
The woman got her legal abortion. It killed her. Yet Kamala keeps repeating her name as if somehow abortion laws had anything to do with her death.
How many times, do you think, Kamala has said the name of Laken Riley?
See comment 3
That is why she died
Yes and up is down. Black is white. OSU is UofM …..
Lol. She got her abortion using the FDA approved abortion drugs. It worked. Twins killed.
Her subsequent trip to the Hospital almost a week later had nothing to do with needing an abortion.
You are wrong and incredibly callous.
Thurman had just passed the six week mark so she couldn’t get the abortion in Georgia. She took a day off and went to North Carolina for the D & C, but was stopped by traffic and missed her appointment. The NC hospital gave her abortion pills which were fine given her stage. She took the pills, but not all of the fetal tissue was expelled so she got an infection. She went to Piedmont Henry Hospital for a D & C to save her, but the hospital is unfortunately in Georgia.
Georgia’s [actually pretty much all] anti-abortion laws are purposely ambiguous so that until there is a court case, doctors are not sure whether they can proceed or not. The Georgia law allows a D & C for a “spontaneous” abortion at this point; hers was induced. So doctors did not know if they could proceed. Finally, a doctor decided she also needed a hysterectomy, but it was too late for her.
Had she been able to get the original D & C in Georgia, she would be alive and her kid would grow up with his Mom. Republicans made her jump through hoops which killed her.
SO she got her legal abortion and killed the twins.
gia’s [actually pretty much all] anti-abortion laws are purposely ambiguous
No they aren't. Even abortion activists concede that. The law’s definition of abortion is limited to procedures that “cause the death of an unborn child.”
An abortion consists of killing a living a human. The twins were not living when she showed up at the Hospital so an abortion at that point was literally impossible.
Do you think the Abortion Defense Network is lying about the law? Do you think they are fools? PEr the abortion defense network:
When she showed up at the hospital, the abortion law was not relevant and had zero to do with what happened.
So doctors did not know if they could proceed.
That's not Pro Publica says. Where do you get that from? I'd hope no doctor, especially not a specialist in the field, could possibly be that ignorant. Someone that dumb shouldn't have been able to graduate high school, let alone be licensed as a physician.
If that were true, the other option is that the doctors had been misled by abortion activists into believing something that isn't true. All this lying about these statutes does seem designed to kill mothers doesn't it? They need someone to die so they can politicize it, and this is the closest they could come.
d she been able to get the original D & C in Georgia,
So the abortion pill is too unsafe and the FDA is wrong. That's your argument?
There is no guarantee a hospital will perform an elective procedure without insurance coverage. And non-emergency abortions really are an elective procedure. Even Roe v. Wade did not require doctors to perform abortions.
If Thurman had not gotten pregnant then the abortion drug or a D & C would never have been needed. The whole thing could have been avoided with birth control or abstinence. The risks associated with pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth would justify government regulation of sexual activity.
Abstinence from sexual activity has no deleterious side effects and is 100 pct effective for prevention of risks and dangers associated with pregnancy. Abstinence from sexual activity is much safer than any type of abortion.
You're wrong. Here's the relevant text:
The word "spontaneous" means without external stimulus. She used medication. The addition of this word states that what the doctors needed to do, and would have done since it is SOP in Thurman's situation, is illegal.
Nonsense. The medicinal abortion fatality rate is about 1 in 250,000 where Republicans have not fucked up women's health care. For comparison, the fatality rate for hip replacement is greater than 1 in 1,000.
Spot on bro!
Other than republicons trying to abolish birth control and abortion,
Can't have people having sex without having a baby now can we?
Especially when those opposed can't get any.
Here's the relevant text:
Lol. YOu somehow skipped the definition of abortion, which is the relevant text. That you skipped the statutory definition of abortion is telling, don't you think?
subsection A doesn't limit that controlling definition.
There is no construction of the english language that can turn the removal of Dead fetal tissue into an act that will the death of an unborn child. Words have meaning.
If you really don't understand why "termination will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child" ctegorically rules out the abortion statute applying to fetuses that had already been killed, I'll give you an abortion rights group guide to abortion in Georgia, again:
PEr the Abortion Defense Network:
This isn't debateable.
Nonsense.
You are the one whose arguing the drugs are unsafe, not me.
Just to make sure we’re on track, we’re discussing the intentional ambiguity in Republican anti-abortion legislation. So Sean, your post makes my point. The law does include the stuff you posted, however, it also includes the stuff I posted and repost here:
If (A) simply stated “(A) Removing a dead unborn child” there would be no ambiguity. Any one would would accept that removing a dead fetus is not an abortion. But that’s not what it says, it qualifies how the fetus died. Thurman’s fetus died because of an induced abortion. The doctors will worry that this segment of the law could be interpreted to mean that it would still be an abortion. Remember that these doctors are operating in a state where if it suited Republican legislators’ purposes, they would not hesitant to destroy the doctor. No doctor would want to be the guinea pig for such a lawsuit - and therein lies the purpose of the ambiguity.
Thurman should have had a D & C when she showed up with the infection, but ultimately had a hysterectomy. A hysterectomy is not technically a D & C so it avoids the abortion law, but a hysterectomy is effectively a super D & C. Unfortunately too late for Thurman.
Are you absolutely positive this death is not the fault of an immigrant doctor who was looking out for themselves? Or was it possibly because the attending physician was waiting for laboratory test results? Or was it possibly because of the current medical imperative to avoid over use of antibiotics? Or was it possibly because the board of directors for a corporate hospital was worried about their bottom line? Or was it because the health insurance company denied coverage? Or was it because the patient failed to follow directions for using the abortion drug and lied about it?
Seems like liberal minded prosecutors will jump on these cases to prosecute medical professionals much, much faster than they'll prosecute real criminals. Why is that?
Cocoa puffs
Spot on brother, spot on!
Corn Pops!
Yeah brother! lol
Nope, wrong again. Amazing
Hilarious that you think so!