Whose fault is it?
If you ask Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s former President Donald Trump’s fault.
After all, Donald Trump was the one who appointed the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, which allowed Georgia to pass laws restricting abortions, which led Amber Nicole Thurman to take supposedly “safe” abortion pills to kill her twin infants, which did the job but left her in an Atlanta hospital with a severe infection that the attending doctors reportedly didn’t treat fast enough. (READ MORE: Harris and ABC Lied About Late-Term Abortions)
According to ProPublica, which investigated Thurman’s death, it’s the “first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed ‘preventable,’ is coming to public light.”
The New York Times agreed. Thurman died because Donald Trump is a horrible person who wants to pass a federal ban on abortion — and don’t you dare suggest that Thurman died because the abortion pill is unsafe.
Two Georgia Women Die After Taking the Abortion Pill
According to ProPublica, Thurman discovered she was pregnant with twins in the summer of 2022. Just past the six-week mark and no longer able to receive an abortion in Georgia where a six-week abortion ban had just gone into effect, the single mom decided she couldn’t handle twins and drove four hours to North Carolina to an abortion clinic.
Thurman missed the appointment due to traffic, and the abortion facility offered her a chemical abortion as an alternative way to end her pregnancy. But after taking both pills, Thurman’s body was unable to rid itself of her unborn children and she ended up in the emergency room at Piedmont Henry Hospital with an acute septic infection. By the time the medical staff initiated surgery, it was far too late, and Thurman’s heart stopped on the operating table.
At this point, it’s important to note that ProPublica’s investigation admitted that “[i]t is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C to Thurman.” The dilatation and curettage (D&C) surgery was necessary to remove the remains of the children from her womb. It also admitted that “[d]octors and a nurse involved in Thurman’s care declined to explain their thinking and did not respond to questions from ProPublica.” (READ MORE: Pro-Life Women Are Disappearing)
In other words, we don’t know that Georgia’s six-week abortion ban played a role in the decision that Piedmont’s medical staff made to delay surgery. The fact is, as the account Secular Pro-Life pointed out on X, Georgia’s abortion law didn’t prevent doctors from intervening because there was no heartbeat and it was clearly a medical emergency.
It’s hardly fair to claim, as the New York Times did, that “abortion bans killed someone.” It would be better to admit that the abortion pill killed someone — in fact, it killed three people: Thurman, and her unborn twins.
Of course, Thurman isn’t the only one. ProPublica also released its investigation into the death of Candi Miller, who also died after a septic infection following a chemical abortion. An autopsy also discovered that she had used “a lethal combination of painkillers, including the dangerous opioid fentanyl.” Miller’s family has alleged that she hesitated to seek medical aid due to Georgia’s abortion ban, but the article also admits that “her family has no idea how she obtained them [the painkillers] or what was going through her mind — whether she was trying to quell the pain, complete the abortion or end her life.”
Again, a woman (and her unborn child) were killed by an abortion pill that we’re told is “safe and effective.”
Stories Like These Should Deter Women From Medical Abortions, Not Encourage Them
The timing of the story, the headlines liberal media organizations are writing to describe it, and the speech Kamala Harris plans to give on Friday in Georgia are all rather perniciously timed. As of the end of August, 10 states had some form of a ballot measure addressing abortion confirmed for their 2024 ballots, the majority of which would enshrine abortion in their state constitutions.
This means that the message that “abortion bans kill women” will be blaring loud and clear just as voters head to the polls for early voting. It all leaves hardly enough time for pro-lifers to point out that it wasn’t the abortion ban that killed Thurman or Miller, but the abortion pill.
What should be stories that deter women from considering medical abortion as a “safe” way to get out of a difficult situation will instead be turned into a political weapon to ensure radical legalization of abortion on a state-by-state basis. (WATCH: The Spectator P.M. Podcast Ep. 68: Women Are Partying and Packing Abortion Pills)
Whose fault is it?
Certainly not Trump’s. He’s suggested that he has no intention of taking federal action against abortion, much less the abortion pill. It’s a states’ issue, he says. And he intends to leave it at that.
When it comes to the deaths of Thurman, Miller, and women like them, we should blame the abortion pill itself. We should blame the politicians and medical professionals who told those women that everything would be fine and that complications were rare.
But even more so, we should blame a society that has told women for decades that, if a pregnancy is an inconvenience, they can simply end the precious lives of the children entrusted to them.
READ MORE:
Harris and ABC Lied About Late-Term Abortions
Tim Walz’s Message on Murdering Babies: ‘Mind Your Own Damn Business’