ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative outlet, has ignited a flurry of questions and criticism after it published a report blaming Georgia‘s abortion law for the deaths of two women who took abortion pills.
The controversy comes after ProPublica has faced scrutiny for turning far-left talking points into reporting, including with critical reports about the Supreme Court’s conservative justices. The outlet has also faced scrutiny for the funding it has received from progressive sources.
Critics argue that the latest report, which cites the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision for allowing Georgia to pass its abortion law, misrepresents the facts of what occurred and leverages selective evidence to push a partisan narrative. The controversy has been elevated as a campaign message by abortion access defenders, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
National Journalism Center program director Becket Adams took aim at ProPublica’s report in an op-ed for The Hill, calling it “shockingly dishonest.” Although the outlet effectively blamed the deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller on Georgia’s abortion ban, Adams said there was no direct evidence in the report to support this conclusion in part because ProPublica did not interview any physicians who treated the women.
“If they handed out awards for Sleaziest News Operation, ProPublica would give even the lowest-brow tabloid a run for its money,” Adams wrote.
AllSides, a company that analyzes perceived political bias in online media, even posted to X on Wednesday that “ProPublica was indeed misleading about the nature of Georgia’s abortion destruction at some points in the articles.”
ProPublica was indeed misleading about the nature of Georgia’s abortion restriction at some points in the articles, such as by calling D&Cs “newly criminalized” in the Thurman investigation without specifying that they’re only criminal under specific conditions.
— AllSides (@AllSidesNow) September 25, 2024
The media literacy firm said the outlet misled its readers when it described dilation and curettage, a procedure that would have saved both women’s lives, as a “felony, with few exceptions” under Georgia law. However, AllSides also suggested the outlet’s “true argument” is that any perceived ambiguities in Georgia’s law could “motivate doctors to withhold care until a situation becomes clearly life-or-death.”
The Georgia abortion reporting is not the first time media critics have placed ProPublica in the spotlight. For more than a year, the organization has been at the forefront of a series of high-profile stories alleging ethics violations by conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The latter authored the 6-3 decision that overturned nearly 50 years of abortion precedent under Roe v. Wade.
ProPublica targeted Thomas for receiving lavish travel gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow and wrote what critics called a hit piece about Alito for attending an Alaskan fishing trip with hedge fund manager Paul Singer many years ago.
While Singer and Crow have had tangential interests in matters pending before the Supreme Court, no report to date has shown that the justices’ decisions were affected by third parties.
Left-wing funding ties
Previous investigations by the Washington Examiner have uncovered that ProPublica is heavily funded by left-wing megadonors who have supported court-packing advocacy groups or efforts to expand the size of the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority that was created with the help of former President Donald Trump’s three nominees.
The nonprofit outlet was founded in 2007 by the Sandler Foundation, which has donated nearly $40 million to ProPublica since 2010. The Sandler Foundation has also funneled money into progressive groups such as Demand Justice, which has advocated court-packing and the investigation of conservative justices. Demand Justice specifically received $500,000 from the Sandler Foundation to further its campaign against Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, previously described ProPublica’s efforts as “revenge for overturning Roe v. Wade” in a statement to the Washington Examiner, adding that “ProPublica exclusively cites leftist ‘ethics experts’ who confirm their priors about constitutionalist justices to satisfy their dark-money Democrat donors.”
ProPublica has also benefited from the financial backing of left-wing billionaire George Soros, whose Foundation to Promote Open Society has donated over $3 million to ProPublica and an additional $2.7 million to the Campaign Legal Center, a group that has consistently pushed for investigations into Thomas.
The outlet has faced accusations of hypocrisy over its reports criticizing dark money donors, such as Federalist Society co-Chairman Leonard Leo, who is credited with helping Trump select his judicial nominees, while remaining opaque about who donates to its own organization.
ProPublica reported taking in $6.3 million in donations throughout 2020 and 2021. In 2023, the nonprofit outlet hosted a ritzy fundraiser in Manhattan hosted by multimillionaire Mark Colodny, who is also on ProPublica’s board, while other attendees included members of the Rockefeller family.
“I’ve been the subject of ProPublica reporting largely around the subject of anonymous giving within the conservative movement,” Leo told the New York Post in 2023. “So I’m happy to see they’re having dark money dinners because now maybe they’d be in favor of anonymous giving.”
Partisan reporting with widespread impact
Despite the lack of direct evidence tying Thurman’s death to Georgia’s abortion ban, ProPublica’s report has gained traction in corporate media outlets, with the Atlantic, the Nation, and Newsweek echoing the claims.
In a campaign speech in Georgia last week, Harris claimed that both women “died because of a Trump abortion ban.” Meanwhile, she openly embraced this week a carveout for the filibuster to push through legislation to codify Roe, which could also give Democrats the legislative tools to pass other legislation on their wishlist, such as imposing term limits and enforceable ethics rules on the Supreme Court.
But as Adams pointed out, the ProPublica article in question conceded that doctors involved in Thurman’s care declined to weigh in for the investigation, leaving much of the narrative in the story based on third-party speculation.
“It’s a shame we never hear from Thurman’s doctors directly,” Adams wrote.
A ProPublica spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the outlet stands by its reporting, relying on the words of “more than 30 experts” who agreed that the “deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller were preventable, a newsworthy finding.”
“Our ongoing reporting is illuminating the challenges doctors face in caring for patients with pregnancy complications in states with restricted access to abortion,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, anti-abortion organizations have also spoken out, with Christina Francis of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists stating that “the state’s abortion law did not stand in the way of saving her life. … Any assertion that she experienced a delay in care as a secondary effect of the law is mere speculation.”
Other critics argue that ProPublica’s style of reporting is part of a broader trend in which the outlet leverages hot-button political issues to push an agenda.
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“ProPublica is using a pair of tragedies to advance a misleading political narrative about the restrictions Georgia has imposed on abortion,” conservative author Isaac Schorr wrote in a Mediate op-ed last week. “If ProPublica cannot control its ideological impulses … it should recuse itself from the subject entirely.”
ProPublica has previously defended itself against accusations that it is motivated by the politics of its donors, saying the nonprofit outlet receives “philanthropic support from donors of every stripe. Our newsroom operates with fierce independence. … ProPublica exposes abuses of power no matter which party is in charge.”