Just days after publishing an article claiming that a young mother in Georgia died because of a state law protecting preborn children from abortion, ProPublica has published the story of the death of a second Georgia woman who it claims to have died for the same reason. In reality, both women died after their chemical abortion attempts failed.
The first woman, Amber Thurman, died after the abortion pills she took to abort her twins at nine weeks gestation failed to produce a complete abortion. Thurman became septic, a known risk listed on the abortion drug’s black box warning. Doctors at the Georgia hospital Thurman visited chose not to intervene quickly and perform the dilation and curettage (D&C) she needed to remove the infected remains/tissue and save her life, though Georgia law specifically allows it.
Thurman didn’t die because of Georgia’s laws, but that hasn’t stopped ProPublica from publishing the story of yet another woman who died after taking the abortion pill, attempting to blame the state’s laws again.
The second woman, Candi Miller reportedly ordered abortion pills online from Aid Access. She is said to have feared that her pregnancy could be dangerous, due to her pre-existing health conditions. But as in Thurman’s case, the abortion pills failed to produce a complete abortion, with parts of Miller’s preborn child left inside of her, and it appears that she (like Thurman) may have become septic.
Unlike in Thurman’s case, ProPublica does not list the gestational age of Miller’s preborn baby when she obtained and took the abortion pills. The abortion pill’s efficacy rate has been shown to decrease as gestational age increases.
According to ProPublica, Miller was scared to see a doctor out of fear of being sent to jail (though the law doesn’t allow women to be prosecuted for abortion) and suffered at home until she died.
But there are some very strong reasons why Miller’s death, like Thurman’s, was not the fault of Georgia’s pro-life law:
1. The autopsy revealed an incomplete abortion and potentially lethal painkillers in Miller’s body.
2. D&Cs are not illegal in Georgia.
3. At-home (DIY) chemical abortions come with potentially serious risks.
4. If Miller’s health conditions had put her at serious risk during pregnancy, her abortion would have been legal.
FACT #1: The autopsy revealed an incomplete abortion and potentially lethal painkillers.
Miller’s death seems directly linked to her failed abortion, yet ProPublica’s article appears to contradict itself as to the manner of her death. At the beginning, the article states:
An autopsy found unexpelled fetal tissue, confirming that the abortion had not fully completed. It also found a lethal combination of painkillers, including the dangerous opioid fentanyl.
ProPublica then cites a Georgia committee tasked with investigating pregnancy-related deaths, with the goal of improving maternal health outcomes, claiming it was able to obtain the committee’s summary report of Miller’s death.
OB/GYN Dr. Ingrid Skop, VP and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, says this indicates 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. “This is an ethics violation.”
However ProPublica was able to get the confidential details surrounding Miller’s death, the outlet almost immediately contradicts its own narrative, also claiming that the abortion pill was not responsible for her death:
The committee also did not believe Miller’s death was caused by the abortion medication. Her autopsy found extremely high doses of diphenhydramine (the main ingredient in Benadryl) and acetaminophen (what’s found in Tylenol) in Miller’s system, along with the fentanyl.
Considering the quantity of drugs and the timing of her death, the committee also did not suspect the abortion pills themselves were in any way tainted.
ProPublica additionally cited Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of Aid Access, from which Miller obtained the abortion pill. Gomperts — who obviously has a vested interest in promoting the narrative that abortion pills are safe — said it was “clear the abortion pill did not cause her death.”
Is ProPublica trying to intentionally confuse readers, acknowledging that Miller suffered an incomplete abortion with retained products of conception and then turning its pointing finger away from the failed abortion entirely, while giving assurances that abortions are not only safe but necessary?
“She had a failed abortion that needed treatment and she did not obtain medical treatment. Of course, that is what led to her death,” Skop told Live Action News, adding that “It does not state if these were toxic levels [of medications in Miller’s system], or merely indications that she was trying to manage her symptoms from failed medication abortion without seeking medical help.”
FACT #2: D&Cs are not illegal in Georgia.
ProPublica falsely claimed, as in the previous article about Amber Thurman’s death, that D&Cs are illegal in Georgia.
“Miller ordered abortion pills online, but she did not expel all the fetal tissue and would need a dilation and curettage procedure to clear it from her uterus and stave off sepsis, a grave and painful infection,” ProPublica reported. “In many states, this care, known as a D&C, is routine for both abortions and miscarriages. In Georgia, performing it had recently been made a felony, with few exceptions.”
This is, again, demonstrably false. “Performing an abortion is illegal, not performing a D&C,” Skop said. “This is only meant to confuse.”
A D&C is a gynecological procedure that is not solely used for the purpose of committing induced abortions. It can be used to diagnose conditions, such as uterine polyps or cancer, and to treat numerous conditions, some of which may be pregnancy-related, and some of which are not.
Nothing in the Georgia law says performing a D&C is a felony. What it does say is that intentionally taking the life of a preborn child is a felony — but ProPublica is repeatedly, and seemingly intentionally, spreading this falsehood and contributing to the ongoing fear women like Miller have.
FACT #3: At-home abortions come with potentially serious risks.
Despite claiming that Miller could not obtain a legal abortion in Georgia, she did — thanks to online abortion pill distributor Aid Access. Miller was able to undergo an abortion — an abortion that was botched — and because of this, Miller died.
Aid Access obtains abortion pills from factories in China and India, which experts have said raises concerns about safety issues. According to Massoud Motamed, a former inspector with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these countries are favored because they have low costs and minimal government oversight.
This, however, can lead to quality control problems, and when the product is medication, that can be dangerous.
Motamed said FDA inspectors cannot keep up with foreign drug manufacturers that he believes are hiding problems with their production. “Say I’m at a domestic facility and I tell my supervisors that I’m finding all these problems and I need more time to inspect. That happens — no issue,” Motamed told NBC News. “The same is not true of a foreign facility. I’ve had inspections where I really could have benefited from the extra time and I knew there were problems to be uncovered, but I had to leave the country.”
In India, specifically, where Aid Access obtains abortion pills for distribution, Motamed saw extremely troubling behavior.
“I was going to the bathroom and I kept seeing that people were going into an archival room. And that’s not generally typical,” he said, adding that he decided to review the CCTV footage. “They were staying up all night shredding extensive amounts of documents right before our audit… It means there are systemic issues. It’s one of the more concerning findings I’ve had over the years.”
This is far from the only concern raised about the pharmaceutical industry in India. In addition to trying to hide documents, there have been violations relating to cleanliness and sanitation standards.
But even if the abortion pills had been sourced from the United States, there would still have been safety concerns.
Peer-reviewed studies have found that women are at risk of severe side effects after chemical abortions, including hemorrhage, sepsis, and death. Chemical abortions are reportedly four times more dangerous than first-trimester surgical abortions. The FDA’s 2023 mifepristone label showed that a range of 2.9 to 4.6 percent of women report to the ER for complications after taking the abortion pill regimen. Another study showed that 6% of women visited either an urgent care or an ER due to abortion pill complications.
Furthermore, mifepristone — the first pill in the two-drug abortion pill regimen — has a black box warning for various potential side effects, including sepsis.
This warning was updated in 2023, but the warning included with the drug from 2019 until its 2023 update can be seen below. It notes that “patients with serious bacterial infections and sepsis can present without fever, bacteremia or significant findings on pelvic examination. A high index of suspicion is needed to rule out serious infection and sepsis.” In addition, “Prolonged heavy bleeding may be a sign of incomplete abortion or other complications and prompt medical or surgical intervention may be needed.”
Abortion Pill Mifeprex Black Box Warning (2019 label from FDA)
Prescribers, like Aid Access, are told to “inform the patient about these risks. Ensure the patient knows whom to call and what to do if she experiences sustained fever, severe abdominal pain, prolonged heavy bleeding, or syncope, or if she experiences abdominal pain or discomfort or general malaise for more than 24 hours after taking misoprostol [the second drug in the abortion pill regimen].” Then, the prescriber should “Advise the patient to take the MEDICATION GUIDE with her if she visits an emergency room or another healthcare provider who did not prescribe MIFEPREX, so that provider knows she is undergoing a medical abortion.”
Was Miller told by Aid Access that this was a potential side effect, and what symptoms and warning signs to watch for?
FACT #4: If Miller’s pre-existing conditions had put her at serious risk during pregnancy, her abortion would have been legal in Georgia.
According to ProPublica, Miller had several pre-existing conditions that caused her to question her safety during pregnancy, including lupus, diabetes, and hypertension. It does not make it clear if she was under medical supervision at the time.
That being said, Skop disputes ProPublica’s claims that the Georgia law only allows abortions due to “acute emergencies.”
“If she had renal insufficiency from these conditions, all of which can affect the kidney, her doctor might have made an argument for abortion to ‘prevent substantial impairment of a major bodily function,'” Skop told Live Action News. “If a woman has chronic disease that is likely to progress due to the physiologic changes in pregnancy, a doctor can use his ‘reasonable medical judgment’ to perform an abortion at the time of diagnosis.”
The text of Georgia’s law makes it clear that Skop is correct. It reads (emphasis added):
No abortion is authorized or shall be performed if an unborn child has been determined in accordance with Code Section 31-9B-2 to have a detectable human heartbeat except when:
A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that a medical emergency exists
A medical emergency is defined in the law as “a condition 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.”
However, ProPublica argued that Miller was reticent to seek medical care because she thought she could be jailed for an illegal abortion. ProPublica stated, “While some state bans explicitly say women can’t be prosecuted, Georgia’s ban leaves open that possibility.”
And yet, again, Georgia’s pro-life law appears to specifically exclude Miller’s situation:
(h) It shall be an affirmative defense to prosecution under this article if… (5) A woman sought an abortion because she reasonably believed that an abortion was the only way to prevent a medical emergency.
Miller apparently did believe she needed an abortion to “prevent a medical emergency,” and had proof of her medical conditions. Therefore, she would have had an “affirmative defense to prosecution” (if anyone actually attempted to pursue prosecution).
Despite what the law states, an induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — is not medically necessary. When a pregnant woman has a chronic illness, the typical standard of care is expectant management in which both mother and preborn child are carefully monitored for signs of concern with the understanding that a preterm induced delivery may be necessary even before viability. But the child does not have to be intentionally killed prior to that delivery.
The media’s deceptive narrative, that pro-life laws are to blame for women dying after obtaining abortions, is actually what is causing harm to women. If the abortion industry and its media allies truly cared about women and their safety, they would make clear what pro-life state laws actually say and allow, instead of claiming things that are easily proven false with a reading of the laws themselves.
But then, the media and abortion industry didn’t care when women died after taking the abortion pill while Roe v. Wade was in effect, nor even after Roe fell if those women lived in pro-abortion jurisdictions. It is clear that the heartbreaking stories of the unnecessary and preventable deaths of women are only being used to create the false narrative that not being allowed to freely kill one’s own children is costing women’s lives.
It was a lie before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land… and it’s still a lie now that Roe is gone.
