A lot of people are arguing against pro-life laws in red states. Basically, they are saying that laws that protect unborn children must all be repealed, because here is one woman who stopped being alive while un-aliving her unborn children. In particular, people are citing an article in Pro Publica, written by Kavitha Surana. She has degrees in European History and European Studies. Is she right?

Here is what The Federalist article, which is written by an OB/GYN says:

The latest is ProPublica’s story of a Georgia woman who died after a North Carolina abortionist gave her chemical abortion pills — which, contrary to Democrat narratives, are unsafe. The article, however, pretends the death was caused by Georgia’s pro-life laws. The author of the story repeatedly attempts to conflate a procedure used to treat miscarriages, dilation and curettage (D&C), with elective abortion.

In ProPublica’s telling, 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman had ingested the chemical abortion pill regimen, which consists of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone ends the life of the developing human being; misoprostol helps achieve complete expulsion of the embryo.

It’s worth noting that the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone acknowledged its risks and enacted safety requirements, including a seven-week gestational limit, requiring women to see a physician in person, and a mandatory one-time post-abortion appointment to confirm that the uterus was empty and that bleeding had subsided.

[…]But thanks to Democrat efforts to relax safety requirements for abortion pills, important safeguards no longer apply. When Thurman experienced “complications” from the abortion, which ProPublica wrongly asserts are “rare,” she went to the hospital for a D&C.

[…]Here Kavitha Surana, the story’s author, fails to note the difference between elective abortion and non-abortive D&Cs. She writes: “But just that summer, [Thurman’s state of Georgia] had made performing [D&Cs] a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.”

So, are D&Cs a felony, like Kavitha says? Nope.

This is a gross mischaracterization of the Georgia law. Performing a D&C is not a felony in Georgia (or anywhere else in the nation), nor has it been criminalized. It remains a standard medical procedure — and an indispensable one in cases like Thurman’s. It is always legal in every state because, unlike abortion, it is not intentional feticide.

So that article is by an OB/GYN. Here’s an article from the Daily Signal which is written by a lawyer. The author says that Amber Thurman was also supposed to get an ultrasound, but that requirement was also removed by the Democrats:

Amber Nicole Thurman died after she took the abortion pill, deregulated by the FDA (with multiple safety restrictions eliminated), which caused complications and left parts of her twin unborn babies inside her.

And note – Amber died before she could get the perfectly legal D&C procedure. It’s not illegal, and it’s not a felony because of pro-life laws:

Doctors monitored her condition and hospitalized her, but Thurman died before they could do a D&C (dilation and curettage) to remove the remaining parts of her unborn twins after the incomplete abortion.

Now, Pro Publica’s version of the events was picked up by lots of left-wing news outlets, despite the fact that the AUTHOR of that article has no earned degrees (medicine / law) in the topics that she is writing about, and no private sector work experience in the topics that she is writing about. I chose the articles from The Federalist and Daily Signal because the authors had the right degrees, and the right experience.

I think people need to be a lot more skeptical about articles on medical topics that are written by people with degrees in “European Studies”. This is a question to be decided by doctors and lawyers.