Recent headlines blame Pro-Life laws for increasing maternal mortality in Texas and for the deaths of two Georgia women who took abortion pills. In reality, Pro-Life laws protect both pregnant women and their preborn babies. These tragic cases highlight the dangers of abortion pills, also known as “self-managed abortions,” and the widespread misunderstanding of Pro-Life laws.
In 2022, Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who was nine weeks pregnant with twins, traveled to North Carolina for an abortion. She was given the abortion pill regimen, which ended the lives of her preborn children. However, her body failed to expel all of the fetal tissue completely. This abortion complication led to Thurman becoming septic, a risk listed in the abortion drug’s black box warning.
A standard treatment for sepsis is to start antibiotics and remove the source of the infection. In her case, this meant removing the deceased fetus. After she was hospitalized, doctors delayed the necessary dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove the remaining fetal tissue until it was too late.
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This procedure is legal in Georgia and all states, even under Pro-Life laws. Georgia law, like Texas law, allows for D&C intervention when the child has naturally passed or there’s a threat to the mother’s life. The intervention is not considered an abortion in these cases, as it is not used to end a preborn child’s life.
Similarly, Candi Miller reportedly ordered abortion pills online from Aid Access, an illegal distributor that bypasses essential exams and follow-up care. Like Thurman, Miller did not fully expel her preborn child and likely became septic. According to reports, Miller avoided seeking emergency care due to a misguided fear of prosecution and died at home. However, Georgia law, like laws across the United States, does not prosecute women for having an abortion.
As in Texas, Georgia law allows a physician to determine, in his reasonable medical judgment, if a medical emergency exists. Georgia law defines a medical emergency as:
“a condition in which an abortion is necessary in order to prevent the death of a pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
Abortion pills are extremely dangerous. An estimated one in five mothers requires follow-up medical attention after taking these drugs. The risks of abortion pills include sepsis, hemorrhage, surgical intervention, and in the cases of Thurman and Miller, death. These complications are sorely unreported to the FDA. Claims that abortion pills are “safer than Tylenol” have been proven false.
The United States has poor reporting on complications related to abortion due to the Obama administration’s lax reporting requirements in 2016. Beyond this, abortion proponents encourage women to lie when visiting the emergency room. They are told to say they are experiencing a natural miscarriage rather than an abortion. This leads to the miscoding of abortion complications, making it appear that other causes are interfering with maternal health when abortion has endangered her.
Recently, the Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI), a Leftist research group, leaked a portion of their research on Texas, claiming that our Pro-Life laws increased maternal mortality. They concluded this by looking at limited data from 2019 to 2022. The Institute also did not take into account COVID-19-related deaths between 2019 through 2022. Even more, maternal mortality rates also include abortion mortality. So, as there are more abortions, more women will die from abortions, and maternal mortality will go up.
However, based on the Gender Equity Policy Institute’s data, Texas saw a 35% decrease in maternal mortality from 2021 to 2022. This coincides with the Texas Heartbeat Act, the strongest Pro-Life protection to take effect at that time.
If women like Thurman and Miller had not taken the abortion pill, both women AND their children would be alive. National Pro-Life laws could have actually saved these women by removing access to lethal abortion pills. Even after their abortions, Thurman and Miller’s deaths could have been prevented through proper legal medical treatment.
These heartbreaking cases expose the reality that severe risks are associated with abortion pills. Pro-Life laws are the only protections we have against these dangers to women and preborn babies.
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