At Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign event in Michigan the other day, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said these words: “There are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need.”
None of this is true.
We should first note that in the recent past, Cheney’s position was that the 14th Amendment protected the unborn from the moment of conception. In 2021, Cheney co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which was a complete ban on abortion that went far beyond anything found in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a decision that returned the issue, unmentioned anywhere in the Constitution or any founding document, to voters. I can’t tell you how many misleading political ads I’ve seen falsely claiming that former President Donald Trump had “banned abortion.”
In any event, perhaps Cheney has abandoned her principles because of Trump. She wouldn’t be the first. But nowhere does the Dobbs decision empower legislatures to pass laws barring women from getting “the care they need.” There is no such law. There is no such case.
Now, of course, on the Left, “healthcare” is often a euphemism for abortion on demand from conception to birth. But these days, the media also concoct fictional accounts of women and children being murdered by Dobbs. One account, repeated by Harris on the campaign trail all the time, revolves around the tragic case of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old Georgia woman.
Numerous Democrats have pointed to Thurman as a victim of post-Dobbs abortion laws. Harris contends that “after not receiving urgent care needed for an infection under Georgia’s extreme abortion ban,” Thurman had died.
First off, Georgia doesn’t have an abortion “ban.” The state restricts abortion after a heartbeat can be detected in the fetus. Abortion restrictions are no more “bans” than a speed limit is a “ban” on driving. And Georgia law makes exemptions for medical emergencies, all futile pregnancies, and pregnancies that are a result of rape or incest. There is absolutely nothing in Georgia law that stops a doctor or nurse, or anyone else, from saving a life. The opposite.
Moreover, Harris’s claim is based on a piece published by ProPublica, a left-wing partisan oppo-shop that spends much of its time smearing Supreme Court justices. Thurman, it seems, had suffered complications after taking abortion pills to terminate twins. She was taken to a hospital, where doctors reacted slowly. By the time Thurman was in the hospital, her fetuses were already dead, so not even the most confused medical-care worker could have misunderstood the law.
If anything, the headline of the ProPublica piece should have been, “Complications from abortion pills kill Georgia woman.”
Indeed, ProPublica fails to provide a single statement by anyone involved in Thurman’s death backing the central assertion of the piece. It is complete conjecture. Whenever the narrative becomes inconvenient, ProPublica simply interviews some anonymous “OB-GYNs in states that outlawed abortion” to do guesswork. Why are they anonymous? One suspects they work for NARAL or some such group. Indeed, the bulk of the piece consists of talking points and scaremongering meant to distract from massive holes in the story.
It is not until the 56th paragraph of the story that we learn, “It is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C.” Which is an astonishing admission, considering the entire story is predicated on the claim that the abortion law killed a woman. The piece doesn’t meet any standard of real journalism. They rarely do when it comes to abortion.
You’re free, of course, to oppose abortion restrictions, but there is no evidence that any woman or child in the United States has died because of Dobbs.
Yet, this week, I ran across a CNN piece headlined: “Infants died at higher rates in the U.S. following the Supreme Court decision that revoked the federal right to an abortion, new research finds.” The article isn’t the first of its kind, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Well, it took me about two minutes to track down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention infant mortality rates. While the percentage went up in 2022 — the Dobbs decision didn’t drop until June of that year — it declined in 2023 and was projected to decline again in 2024. You’d think CNN would mention this fact.
So, what is CNN talking about? At closer inspection, the story is based on a JAMA Pediatrics study that found infant mortality rates were higher than “expected,” not higher year-to-year rates. And “expected” is a malleable concept concocted by researchers, who cherry-pick a handful of useful months over the past few years to use as a comparison.
However CNN parses the study, the headline is objectively untrue. But how many people read past a headline on X? Judging from the insane comments beneath the piece, not many.
As with most stories about politically motivated pseudoscience, CNN relies on “expert” proxies, in this case, doctors Alison Gemmill and Ushma Upadhyay, to offer context on the study without mentioning that they’re pro-abortion advocates. Now, having a position doesn’t automatically disqualify anyone’s views. We all have them. The fact that CNN frames supporters as unbiased authorities should make you highly skeptical.
Then again, even if the study wasn’t plainly misleading, it wouldn’t offer any useful information. Most of the unexpected infant deaths were due to congenital anomalies. Which is to say most of these babies would have been killed in the womb before abortion restrictions were enacted. In my book, every baby that survives is a life saved. “Researchers” and CNN reporters might not view fetuses in the same way, but whether they like it or not, that’s the debate.
Notice, as well, that CNN claims the new study was “spurred” by another “investigative report” headlined: “Nearly two years after Texas’s six-week abortion ban, more infants are dying.”
This story was no better. In fact, it seems the “expectations” study was necessary because the initial CNN piece was so easily dismissed. In it, we learn that the Texas abortion ban “may be fueling a sudden spike in infant mortality.” An over 11.5% spike in infant deaths in 2022, we are told. Well, Texas also had a lot more babies after it passed abortion restrictions, so raw numbers don’t mean a ton. But here is some more context: In 2019 and 2014 and 2012, before any restrictive abortion law was passed in Texas, the state had a higher infant mortality rate than it does today. In 2014 and 2017, the state’s infant mortality rate was right at the national average. In 2024, it is right at the national average again.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In its worst year, Texas experienced 5.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022. Why does Texas have a lower infant mortality rate than Michigan or New Mexico, where abortion is legal throughout pregnancy? Our CNN “experts” would probably tell you the “abortion ban ripple effect.” But historic numbers are no better. Probably because many other factors are at play. Texas and New Mexico, for instance, have large numbers of people streaming over the border from “developing” nations where prenatal care is substandard.
But it would take a book to dive into the endless misinformation pumped out by the media on abortion. It is one of the rites of the progressive creed. And, it seems, the more consequential it becomes as a political issue, the more we can expect them to mislead the public.