ProPublica endangers women by misrepresenting Georgia’s abortion law

(The Daily Signal) – A ProPublica article published Wednesday claims a Georgia woman died after taking an abortion pill because the state abortion ban prevented her from getting necessary treatment. But a pro-life OB-GYN says 41-year-old Candi Miller’s story says more about the danger of abortion pills than about the abortion law.

“This story illustrates very clearly the horrendous experience that women go through when they take these abortion drugs. But [also], the real dangers there are when women take them, especially when they take them without medical supervision,” Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB-GYN, told The Daily Signal. “And this completely contradicts the abortion industry’s narrative that, one, that these drugs are as safe as Tylenol; and two, that self-managed abortions are perfectly safe.”

ProPublica published Kavitha Surana’s profile of Miller, “Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died,” on Wednesday.

Abortion in Georgia is banned after around six weeks of pregnancy with an exception if the life of the mother is at risk. Every state abortion ban in the United States includes a life-of-the-mother exception.

Miller had lupus, diabetes, and hypertension, so doctors said another baby could kill her. After accidentally getting pregnant at age 41, she ordered abortion pills online, but they failed to expel all of the unborn baby’s tissue, leading to an infection that ultimately killed her, ProPublica reported.

Miller’s family said she didn’t go to the doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.” But according to Francis, who serves as CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Georgia law would not have prevented Miller from getting the necessary dilation and curettage, or D&C, procedure to remove the tissue.

If Miller had a severe form of any of those conditions, then she still would have qualified legally under Georgia’s law for ending her pregnancy under the state’s medical exception, Francis said.

“It sounds like she just did not receive good counsel, and somebody just told her automatically that she wouldn’t qualify—which, again, is not the case,” Francis said.

By spreading misinformation about abortion laws, ProPublica endangers women, Francis said. A woman in Georgia hemorrhaging from a spontaneous miscarriage could read Surana’s article and unnecessarily drive hours to another state out of fear she couldn’t get the necessary care in her state.

Surana’s article is a real world example of how lies about abortion bans can hurt women, according to Francis.

A ProPublica spokesperson told The Daily Signal it stands by its reporting.

“The state’s committee of more than 30 experts concluded that the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller were preventable, a newsworthy finding,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

ProPublica published an article Tuesday about Amber Nicole Thurman, who died after a Georgia hospital failed to treat an infection caused by an abortion pill complication in time to save her life.

Francis said Thurman’s death is an obvious case of medical malpractice that has nothing to do with the state’s abortion ban.

“Our ongoing reporting is illuminating the challenges doctors face in caring for patients with pregnancy complications in states with restricted access to abortion,” the spokesperson continued. “The FDA and World Health Organization have advised, based on clinical data, that the two-pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol is safe and effective when taken in the first trimester and deaths are exceedingly rare.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxed restrictions on the abortion pill in December 2021, allowing women to order them online without seeing a doctor. Francis said this has endangered women.

The OB-GYN said women and physicians both need accurate information about abortion.

“Women deserve to have accurate information to know there is not a single state law in this country that will prosecute a woman if she has gone for an abortion,” Francis said, “and there’s not a single state law in the country that would prevent a physician from intervening immediately if a woman is facing a potentially life-threatening complication of her pregnancy.”

“The laws do not require that the woman be critically ill or actively dying before a physician can intervene,” the OB-GYN said.