When ProPublica published an article arguing that highly restrictive anti-abortion laws contributed to the deaths of two women, the anti-abortion extremists at the Media Research Center (along with others in the right-wing media) rushed to blame anything else but the harsh laws they supported. Justine Brooke Murray dishonestly dismissed ProPublica as an “activist ‘news’ site” and huffed that “The tragedy quickly became a viral horror story of an innocent woman killed by Georgia’s ‘oppressive pro-life laws in a post-Roe v. Wade America” before citing anti-abortion activists to deflect attention from it and blame “the dangerous side effects of abortion drugs” for the deaths. She concluded: “But these little facts don’t align with the Left’s pro-death agenda. Don’t expect Harris or the mainstream media to retract their ‘disinformation.'”
Alex Christy complained in a Sept. 19 post:
ProPublica has taken a break from generating fake controversies about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in order to start generating fake controversies about pro-life laws. Recently, the outlet highlighted Georgian women Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, who they claimed died as a result of the state’s pro-life laws, despite there being no reason for such a conclusion. On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joy Reid repeated the claims on The ReidOut.
Reid began the segment by introducing a trio of clips, “When the [chairman of the board of the Federalist Society] Leonard Leo Six on the Supreme Court decided to rip away constitutional freedoms from millions of women across this country, many warned of what would happen.”
The montage showed former Sen. Barbara Boxer, former North Carolina Senate candidate Cheri Beasley, and Rep. Barbara Lee warning women will die if abortion is restricted or banned.
On the other side of the clips, Reid claimed to be vindicated, “Republicans treated those warnings with the same seriousness with which they treat most women’s issues. Which isn’t much. Republican men from Trump down to governors to state legislatures assured us they were protecting life and that these Trump abortion bans would protect the mother’s life if it was ever in danger.”
[…]ProPublica claimed a D&C would have been a felony, but Mediaite’s Isaac Schorr pointed out that not only is that wrong, but even ProPublica undermined its own story, “It’s not until you’re close to sixty paragraphs in that the outlet admits to this absolutely critical fact: ‘It is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C to Thurman, though the summary report shows they discussed the procedure at least twice in the hours before they finally did.’”
As for Miller’s case, Schorr again highlights the problem, “Like Thurman, Miller used abortion pills to seek to terminate her pregnancy. And like Thurman, the pills did not work as intended, failing to expel all of the dead fetus.”
At that point the fetus was already dead, so removing it would not constitute an abortion, “ProPublica again erroneously states that Georgia had made a felony out of the dilation and curettage procedure, but Miller was legally entitled to seek such treatment.”
Actually, ProPublica did acknowledge that such an exception exists, but the D&C procedure has been so thoroughly demonized by anti-abortion activists that the threat of litigation and imprisonment has scared doctors away for doing it: “There is no standard protocol for how providers should interpret such language, doctors said. How can they be sure a jury with no medical experience would agree that intervening was ‘necessary’?”
The next day, Curtis Houck raged at ABC’s Mary Bruce for reporting the story, claiming she “focused on abortion and guns with the latter including a lie Bruce purposefully peddled from far-left, dark-money-backed ProPublica the story of Amber Thurman, a ’28-year-old mother who was reportedly the first publicly known to lose her life as a result of Georgia’s abortion ban.'” Christy returned to attack Bruce and others in a Sept. 21 post:
The Friday evening newscasts of the big three networks of ABC, NBC, and CBS all hyped Vice President Kamala Harris using a discredited ProPublica story about Georgia’s pro-life law killing women. In the case of ABC and CBS, the hyping would continue on the Saturday morning shows.
On Friday’s World News Tonight, ABC White House correspondent Mary Bruce was the worst of the bunch. She began by promoting “Vice President Kamala Harris in battleground Georgia, a state that is putting a new spotlight on one of her campaign’s key issues: abortion.”
[…]Even ProPublica begrudgingly admits deep in their story it is unknown why doctors waited so long, it just projects the idea that they had an overcautious interpretation of the state’s pro-life law onto the doctors, which still should put the blame on them, not the law.
[…]Back on Friday, CBS congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane also simply repeated what Harris and ProPublica put out on Evening News, “slamming Republicans for limiting abortion services, citing the story of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman who died because she didn’t receive the appropriate abortion care in time.”
Likewise, correspondent Natalie Brand declared on CBS Saturday Morning, “Vice President Harris tried to galvanize supporters around abortion rights… Highlighting the story of the 28-year-old mother who died in 2022 following a delay in medical care. Harris blamed Georgia’s abortion ban.”
Brand’s abortion-related reporting ended with a clip of Harris declaring, “She died of sepsis. And recently, medical experts determined that Amber’s death was preventable. Preventable.”
Everyone agrees Thurman’s death was preventable, but there’s no evidence it was because of Georgia law.
Christy was silent on his anti-abortion activists have demonized the D&C procedure.
Brad Wilmouth devoted a Sept. 23 post to Fox News toeing the correct ideological line and having on a anti-abortion activist physician to spout it and trying to blame abortion pills instead:
Over the weekend, Fox & Friends Saturday helped debunk claims by liberals that two women died because of Georgia’s abortion ban as the show had on Dr. Christina Francis to discuss the issue.
[…]Dr. Francis recalled that Amber Nicole Thurman traveled to North Carolina to get an abortion and was given two medications to induce the abortion in spite of those who argue the medications are unsafe:
[…]Dr. Francis then complained about Democrats and the media causing harm by misinforming women: “You know, it’s really unfortunate that politicians like Vice President Harris and the media are trying to blame this on laws like Georgia’s law that actually protects women and their children. And we know that Amber and her unborn children were victims of these high-risk abortion drugs.” But they always want to push these pills are always safe and effective, and never cause complications.
Actually, the MRC and other anti-abortion extremists have been misinforming women by fearmongering about the alleged risk of abortion pills, even though they are safer to women than carrying a pregnancy to term.
Jorge Bonilla gave another cookie to Fox News for staying on message in an Oct. 6 post by touting how, during an interview with Tim Walz, Shannon Bream issued “multiple fact-checks on Amber Thurman, on the repeal of reporting pursuant to Minnesota’s born-alive law after reports that 8 abortion survivors died, and on emergency care in abortion scenarios.” Funny, we thought the MRC hated fact-checkers.
Christy returned to whine further in an Oct. 9 post about “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper’s interview with Harris:
Cooper then transitioned from T-ball to fake news, “We have these real life names. We have these Yeah. Horrific moments that these people are losing their lives. Right. We have a woman named Amber Thurman who died in Georgia because the abortion bans in that state. The doctors were too afraid to treat her. I know that you spoke to her family. Yeah. What was that conversation like?
Harris replied by giving more details from ProPublica’s story on the matter, but even they were forced to begrudgingly admit they don’t know why the doctors waited to give treatment.
Again, Christy failed to mention anti-abortion demonization and legal threats around abortion procedures. He whined one more time about Thurman’s story being told, this time by CNN’s Nia-Malika Henderson, in an Oct. 16 post:
Henderson also claimed, “I think some of the most effective moments in the debate, some of the most effective moments that Kamala Harris has had on the campaign trail, have really been dissecting what their Republican approach has actually meant for actual women on the ground and some of these states, you saw Colin Allred, who we’ll talk about later, talk about this in the debate against Ted Cruz.”
What Henderson meant by “actual women” is a story that the liberal media has repeated several times in recent weeks, “So, Donald Trump doesn’t have a real answer for the reality that some women are facing, including some women who have died in Georgia, Amber Thurman, who died because of these abortion restrictions. He is fond of saying, ‘Listen, it’s back in the states of that’s what everybody wanted. That’s not what everybody wanted.’”
Amber Thurman died because of medical malpractice by her doctors. There was nothing in Georgia’s pro-life law or pro-life ethics that prohibited her from getting the care she needed. The media also routinely likes to claim that Donald Trump is a lying liar who lies all the time, but as the narrative around Georgia’s pro-life law illustrates, for the media, some lies are better than others.
Christy robotically repeated his assigned narrative one more time in a Oct. 25 post: “Georgia pro-lifers did not kill Thurman, unexplained medical malpractice did. Even ProPublica admitted that it is unknown why doctors waited so long to give her treatment; they just put in paragraph 60 after most people probably stopped reading.”
Christy still wouldn’t talk about the extremist anti-abortion rhetoric designed to scare doctors out of doing what’s needed for their patients. But then, pretending that such demonization doesn’t exist is also part of anti-abortion extremism so they don’t have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.