Abortion Panic: Misinformation & Fear After Trump’s Victory | 11.17.24
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Many women on the left are panicking about abortion in the wake of President Trump's resounding election victory. The media has spent months promoting misleading stories, creating panic and spawning online conspiracies. In this episode, we take a close look at the cases that have caused the most concern. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's November 17th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.

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Joining us now to discuss abortion ban misinformation is Daily Wire investigative reporter Mairead Elordi. So Mairead, we're seeing a lot of abortion panic in the wake of this election.

Hi, Georgia. Yes, just a quick scroll through social media will turn up tons of posts from scared and angry women. Most of the fears revolve around women thinking they will be denied life-saving care during pregnancy complications. But their fears are actually misplaced on two levels. One, Trump is not planning on signing a national abortion ban, as many of these women seem to believe. And two, these viral stories about women dying because of state abortion bans are dubious at best.

Nevertheless, the reaction from women has been intense and it's actually spilled over into attacking men and even some delusional and paranoid theories that we'll get to in a second. So first off, there have been a few really tragic deaths that have been blamed on some of these state laws. How much of that is the truth and how much of that is spin?

That's right. So far, there are no deaths that can clearly be blamed on the bans. There are about four or five specific women whose deaths were related to abortion or maternity issues, but none are caused by a hospital being blocked from providing care. In fact, all look like hospital malpractice and or negligence. So let's just debunk them one by one.

Probably the most famous case is Amber Thurman. Here's a Kamala Harris ad that specifically talked about her case. My daughter Amber made me so proud. She was having complications. And...

Tonight, we are learning more about the death of Amber Thurman. The death of Amber Thurman was likely preventable if she'd had access to abortion care in her home state of Georgia. What happened to her was preventable. My daughter is gone because of what Donald Trump did. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. There's nothing good enough to bring her back. Her life is over. I've never been a political person, never.

I'm voting for Kamala Harris because she showed me she really cared. I felt her sincerity and I felt her strength. We will speak her name, Amber Nicole Thurman. I felt her compassion. We will never get Amber back, but we can make sure this never happens again. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Now, what is the truth about Amber Thurman?

Amber Thurman took abortion pills and subsequently died of sepsis. Thurman, who was 28 and living in Georgia, was 10 weeks pregnant with twins when she traveled to North Carolina to obtain abortion pills. She took the pills and miscarried the babies, but later visited an ER after vomiting and passing out at home. It was determined that there was some retained tissue from the pregnancy still in her uterus, which can happen after miscarriage or abortion or even a successful birth.

Unfortunately, doctors took 20 hours to perform the necessary dilation and curatage procedure, or DNC, to clear out her uterus. And during that time, she became severely septic. She ultimately died during her procedure. Even the left-leaning outlets report that it's not clear from the records why doctors waited to provide a DNC. In other words, there's no indication that there were legal concerns as this is a routine procedure.

The hospital has not yet made a statement about why they delayed care. The key here, though, is that Amber was not pregnant at the time she presented to the hospital, so she was not seeking an abortion. She was experiencing a known risk associated with the abortion pills Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Some activists will point to the fact that Thurman traveled out of state to obtain the abortion due to the six-week ban and that she had been seeking a surgical abortion, which she apparently did not get because she missed her appointment.

But the same outcome could have easily occurred if she took the pills in her home state. A surgical abortion also carries a risk of retained tissue. The key issue is that the hospital did not act fast enough to treat a common risk associated with pregnancy and birth. In another case, a woman died at home after not seeking medical attention at all.

Candy Miller in Georgia ordered abortion pills online because she didn't want to be pregnant while having lupus, diabetes, and hypertension. These can cause risks in pregnancy. She died after taking the abortion pills and lying in bed for days. She never sought medical attention.

An autopsy found she, too, had failed to expel all fetal tissue, which, as we noted, can result in infection and sepsis. She also had a lethal combination of painkillers, including fentanyl, in her system. Her family claims she had been afraid to go to the doctor because of George's abortion ban, but if she had gone, she could have been treated legally. So in her case, misinformation about the law potentially contributed to her death.

Sadly, yes. There are two other cases which are a little more complicated but still appear to be hospital malpractice cases. Two additional women in Texas died of sepsis while they were pregnant. In one case, a teen mom named Neviah Crane presented to the hospital with symptoms of strep throat and abdominal cramps. She was not seeking an abortion, she just needed symptom relief. At that visit, the hospital diagnosed her with strep and gave her antibiotics but did not address the abdominal pain.

Nevaeh then went to a second ER about the abdominal pain, and at that visit, she showed symptoms of sepsis along with a urinary tract infection. But she was again sent home by a doctor who had missed infections in previous patients.

She later returned a third time to that second hospital after she started bleeding. By this time, Crane was very septic with extensive internal bleeding, and she unfortunately passed away at the hospital. This was a particularly tragic situation because Crane's six-month unborn baby was actually old enough to potentially survive outside the womb had the hospital treated her promptly.

All of this happened over the course of multiple days. Crane did not want an abortion, but she would have qualified for one due to the life or death nature of the situation. So another case that looks like hospital malpractice. For the record, Crane and her family are pro-life and they blame her death on medical negligence, not the abortion law. And they say her death is being used for politics when the hospitals are to blame. I want them to be going after Baptist and St. Elizabeth because they're blamed for her death.

I feel like they murdered my daughter and they just got away with it. Murdered my daughter and my grandbaby and got away with it. In the last case, a 28-year-old woman named Joseli Barnica in Texas died as a result of mismanaged miscarriage care. Barnica reportedly went to the hospital when she experienced signs of miscarriage at 17 weeks. Her husband said his wife had told him that the medical team said it would be a crime to give her an abortion. But Barnica was not seeking an abortion. She was actively miscarrying.

Yeah.

Would it have been legal for the hospital to perform an abortion in her case rather than allowing the miscarriage to progress without the intervention? Yes, abortion is legal in emergency situations in Texas, and that's up to the doctor's discretion. The Texas Health Department has also since clarified that future emergencies, for example, even just the threat of sepsis to an actively miscarrying woman, counts as threats to the life of the mother. So not only early delivery, but a full-on abortion would have been legal in this case.

So this appears to be another unnecessary tragedy. Now, we often hear about ectopic pregnancies as another sticking point. First off, can you explain to the audience what an ectopic pregnancy is and then what the legality is there?

Sure.

Ectopic pregnancies are a hot topic because they have to be terminated in order to prevent serious medical problems or death, and some activists claim this type of life-saving care could be restricted under abortion laws. But the reality is every pro-life law on the books has exceptions for life of the mother, and ectopic pregnancy is a clear example of that. Dr. Ingrid Skopp, a board-certified OBGYN who has delivered thousands of babies and published research on maternal mortality, breaks this down.

There is no reason a doctor like myself cannot treat pregnant women who experience a miscarriage or have life-threatening conditions like ectopic pregnancy, premature rupture of membranes, hypertensive emergencies, cancer, or a host of other conditions that can put a mother's life in danger.

Treating pregnant women with these conditions by following the medical standards of care, even if it means ending the pregnancy, puts physicians in no legal danger whatsoever. Now, we've also seen a lot of claims that the bans will have downstream effects. So, for example, OBGYNs leaving the states. Has that been happening? There have been reports of OBGYNs leaving states with abortion bans, yes. Although most OBGYNs, about 80%, don't perform abortions to begin with.

It's true that every state allows abortion when it's medically necessary, but some of these doctors say they're concerned their decision will be second-guessed. It's worth noting that some of these pro-life laws have been in effect for two years now since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and still not a single doctor has been prosecuted for performing an abortion. On the same note, tens of thousands of miscarriages occur every year in these same states with pro-life laws.

If the law was truly threatening care for them, we'd be hearing at least dozens of these stories every week. And that's not an exaggeration. It's telling that the only examples of deaths allegedly caused by these laws are the handful we've just discussed. And even these are dubious at best.

And by the way, doctors in Texas, for example, have performed at least 113 abortions to save pregnant women's lives since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. So many competent doctors are confident in making these decisions, despite the rumors you might hear on social media. Now, speaking of fears and rumors spreading on social media, what are we seeing there?

Well, most of the fear center around abortion. Just an example, in one Facebook group for women trying to conceive, women expressed fears about being denied life-saving care during miscarriages. We're also seeing women warning each other not to use period tracker apps anymore. They claim the government is going to monitor women's cycles.

Other social media trends take aim at men. Since Trump won, some women have been calling on each other to embrace the 4B movement. This is a South Korean feminist movement that encourages women to refuse to have sex with men. Some women are even shaving their heads in protest. And another disturbing trend is the hashtag #AquaTofana, which is a reference to wives poisoning their husbands. The anti-male sentiment was largely sparked by Trump's gains with Black men and Latino men as well as young men.

And a lot of the extreme behavior is thanks to the avalanche of misinformation that was spread in the lead up to the election, often by the mainstream media. Well, and some extremely dishonest campaign language as well. Mairead, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia.