The state of Georgia has dismissed every member of its Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) after a confidentiality breach in which women’s data was given to the media outlet ProPublica.
In the aftermath of the dismissal, ProPublica, which has busied itself with deceptively reporting on maternal deaths in recent weeks, has admitted that the deaths of two Georgia women it reported on were not the only two maternal deaths in the state, and that women have been dying during pregnancy, and in the months after giving birth, for years — not because of pro-life laws but because of substandard and negligent care.
ProPublica reported about the deaths of two Georgia women in September: Amber Thurman and Candi Miller. Both women died shortly after taking abortion drugs, with Thurman succumbing to sepsis due to an apparent delay in care, and Miller dying from reported “drug toxicity under unknown circumstances,” according to her autopsy, which listed Miller’s “manner of death” as “undetermined.” ProPublica, however, erroneously (and with an agenda) placed the blame for the women’s tragic deaths on Georgia’s pro-life law.
Though ProPublica originally stated, “Georgia’s Department of Public Health, which oversees the state maternal mortality review committee, said it cannot comment on ProPublica’s reporting because the committee’s cases are confidential and protected by federal law,” the media outlet somehow managed to gain access to both women’s medical information through at least one individual on the committee.
Texas OB/GYN Dr. Ingrid Skop, VP and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, called this out as an issue of medical ethics. “It is a violation of the MMRC confidentiality agreement for the members to do this. Clearly someone from the committee provided the name and other medical information to the reporter,” she said at the time ProPublica published its articles. “This is an ethics violation.”
It turns out, Georgia’s health department agreed.
“Confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals,” Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 8 and addressed to members of the committee. “Even though this disclosure was investigated, the investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information. Therefore, effective immediately the current MMRC is disbanded, and all member seats will be filled through a new application process.”
Pro-abortion media are taking this as an indication that the firing of the Committee must mean the Committee did the right thing in leaking the information to the press. On the contrary, when there is a breach of medical ethics like this one, it should be taken seriously. If the unethical source cannot be found, then all must be dismissed.
ProPublica admits more than two women have died… and it was before Georgia’s law
In the fallout of the mass committee dismissal, ProPublica admitted that preventable maternal deaths have taken place in Georgia since before the pro-life law took effect. Georgia’s LIFE Act was passed in May 2019, but a lawsuit prevented it from taking effect until three years later, in July 2022.
“[The committee’s] job is to collect data and make recommendations aimed at combatting systemic issues that could help reduce deaths and publish them in reports,” wrote ProPublica (emphasis added). “The Georgia committee’s most recent report found that of 113 pregnancy-related deaths from 2018 through 2020, 101 had at least some chance of being prevented. Its recommendations have led to changes in hospital care to improve the response to emergencies during labor and delivery and to new programs to increase access to psychiatric treatment.” That’s 89% that the Committee determined could have been prevented; and remember, the state’s LIFE Act was not in effect.
The two deaths that ProPublica used to try to condemn the Life Act as a dangerous law were not the only two deaths that the committee found to be preventable. Women aren’t dying because of a law that forbids the direct and intentional killing of their children.
So, to recap, each of those 113 maternal deaths in Georgia from 2018 to 2020, of which 101 were reportedly preventable, occurred prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and prior to the enactment of Georgia’s Life Act, which was supposed to take effect on January 1, 2020, but was struck down by District Judge Steve C. Jones. It wasn’t until July of 2022, immediately after Roe was overturned, that an appeals court ordered Jones to reverse his decision and allow the law to take effect.
It was the deaths starting at this point — July of 2022 and later — that ProPublica decided to investigate.
Georgia’s maternal mortality rate has been on the decline
ProPublica’s comment also pointed out a truth it has avoided until now.
It admitted that the recent data on maternal deaths from 2018 to 2020 “led to changes in hospital care to improve response to emergencies during labor and delivery…” And that is reflected in the numbers.
From 2018 to 2020, the maternal mortality rate (maternal deaths while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy) in Georgia was 28.8 per 100,000 live births. From 2019 to 2021, that rate had risen to 35.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, but 2022 data (the most recent available) shows that the rate has dropped to 33 deaths per 100,000 live births.
The majority of these deaths were deemed “preventable” — and this isn’t unusual, either.
The same number of women died in pro-abortion Illinois
In addition, the data out of now-pro-life Georgia lines up closely with data out of the historically pro-abortion state of Illinois, where abortion is allowed for virtually any reason at any time during pregnancy. A state law enacted in 2023 allows non-doctors to commit abortions, provides a legal shield for abortionists, gives legal liability insurance protections to those who commit abortions, and enables any medical professional – broadly defined to include physicians, pharmacists, therapists, and others – who had a license pulled by another state for committing illegal abortions to continue to practice in Illinois. The law also allows for birth centers to commit abortions and requires state-regulated insurance plans to cover abortion pills with no copay.
From 2018 to 2020, the two states saw the same number of pregnancy-related deaths: 113. In Illinois, 91% of those deaths were “potentially preventable due to clinical, system, social, community, or patient factors.” This means about 102 of those 113 maternal deaths in Illinois from 2018-2020 were considered preventable.
But ProPublica cannot blame pro-life laws for the pregnancy-related deaths in a state like Illinois. When a news outlet fails to look at both pro-life and pro-abortion states for a true comparison of pregnancy-related deaths, that outlet appears to be more interested in a narrative than facts.
Distortion and omission
It’s becoming blatantly obvious that ProPublica and other media outlets are distorting the facts surrounding tragic maternal deaths and exploiting the stories of real women in order to infect American minds with the false narrative that pro-life laws are dangerous for women and that pro-life legislators and state governments are villainous.
The facts, however, speak for themselves.
Around the world, statistics have shown that legalized abortion does not lead to a decline in maternal mortality rates. In Ethiopia, for example, abortion was legalized specifically with the goal of lowering maternal mortality rates (MMR); instead, those rates increased after abortion’s legalization. A 10-year study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ Open found that in Mexico, “states with less permissive abortion legislation exhibited lower MMR” than those in which abortion was legal.
Maternal mortality is a serious issue in the United States and globally, and to pretend that the legal ability to kill innocent preborn children is the way to combat high maternal mortality rates is disingenuous, manipulative, and morally incomprehensible.
In addition, to claim, as ProPublica does, that doctors are incapable of understanding state laws is a weak and demeaning excuse for medical neglect. Women and babies deserve better.
Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.
