The Myth of the Prosecuted Doctor: Abortion Misinformation Run Amok

In 2.5 years, there have been zero criminal prosecutions against doctors for performing emergency abortions or miscarriage care. Why the fear-mongering?

*Hi there! If you’re new-ish to my Substack, I write about a variety of topics including sobriety, culture, politics and motherhood. Sobriety is a big theme and I’ll write a lot about that, so if that’s why you joined, stick around!

Today’s post is not about sobriety — and is a little spicy — but please know that I welcome everyone. Respectful dialogue in good faith is all I ask. If this topic isn’t your jam, feel free to skip it & wait for the next one. Thanks for being part of the community and conversation!

Conversations about abortion don’t go very far for a few reasons. One of them is because the two sides talk past each other.

The minute someone says pro-lifers want to “control women’s bodies,” we can’t hear you anymore. That’s logically untrue. In reality, we do just want to protect the body of an unborn child and preserve their right to live. That’s the entire story here.

On the other hand, when pro-lifers say abortion supporters are cruel, heartless baby murderers, the other side tunes out. Most pro-choicers care for women and genuinely believe theirs is a compassionate view. In many ways, it is because any woman who is even thinking about an abortion is certainly struggling.

As RFK Jr., who is pro-choice, said this week in his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, “every abortion is a tragedy.” Though we often hear the extremes on this issue, I know a LOT of pro-choice individuals would resonate with that statement. I don’t think most are excited about the “shout your abortion” movement or celebrating the right to full-term termination of a healthy pregnancy.

Depending on what stats you track, the majority of Americans believe in legal abortion in the first trimester — not beyond. Most would say they don’t believe in abortion for gender selection or minor imperfections either. They want exceptions for rape and incest and true emergency situations like those I’m going to write about today.

I started the post this way because I want readers to understand that I don’t demonize “the other side,” but do hope to foster respectful and kind dialogue.

I am unashamedly pro-life even in the most difficult circumstances, but I have compassion and understanding for why people stand where they do.

But, even if you’ll never call yourself pro-life, there are some things you need to know about the past couple of years. I need you to *not* believe propaganda even when it appears to align with your “side.”

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, misconceptions and rumors about the consequences of abortion restrictions have emerged.

As

Leah Libresco Sargeant

writes (and this is IMPORTANT stuff):

“There were odd attempts to conjure up victims. A JAMA paper pointed out that infant mortality went up compared to other states after Texas passed its heartbeat law. But this was because, as the paper pointed out, more children with congenital problems were being born in Texas. If they had been screened and aborted, as they might have been elsewhere, it would have counted as bettering infant health.

Texas also had an increase in abandoned babies, some of whom have been found in time to be saved, while others died. Again, these deaths were reported as the fault of abortion laws. The implication is that when the children die earlier, in the privacy of a clinic, it’s liberation, but when they die publicly and visibly, it’s a tragedy. These two strains of reporting argued that abortion laws were obstructing the right kinds of deaths.

It took until 2024 for The New Yorker to surface the first woman who potentially died because of an abortion ban. Writer Stephania Taladrid put the question starkly: “Did an Abortion Ban Cost a Young Texas Woman Her Life?” A close read of her reporting reveals the answer is no. Taladrid’s story was the first of what has become a genre of attempted abortion exposes featuring vulnerable women who face medical neglect that is cast as the fault of abortion laws.”

I do not want any woman dying or close to dying because she isn’t given care for a miscarriage or desperate and fatal pregnancy complication.

I’ve never met anyone who wants that.

And since the 2022 changes in federal law, no one has died because of the law. Many will push back here, but every case reported in the news is one of malpractice and negligence on the part of physicians.

Even if they didn’t mean to.
Even if they were scared.

Their duty was (and always has been) to use their medical judgment abiding by the law, which they had full discretion to do.

Furthermore, there have also been inaccurately reported stories that were, at the very least, significantly misunderstood.

Some of the most infamous stories include:

• Amanda Zurawksi. Here, a woman who should have been given immediate care of delivery after her water broke at 18 weeks, was denied that legal care by incompetent doctors afraid to use “reasonable medical judgment.” Thankfully, she lived. The problem here wasn’t the law. Read more on it here.

• Amber Thurman: Thurman died of sepsis after taking the abortion pill, which she obtained legally. She showed signs of acute internal infection at the ER, and doctors did nothing even though her twin babies were already dead. A law intended to protect the lives of unborn babies is irrelevant if said babies are already dead. Doctors were negligent and let her die because of their lack of action.

• Kate Cox. She was denied a legal abortion in Texas because her pregnancy was not a threat to her life and her baby (who was diagnosed with Trisomy18) was alive. She went out of state for an abortion. I understand that people want abortion on babies diagnosed with these difficult things to be legal, but it’s not in Texas — and no one was on the verge of death (except the baby, who was purposely killed.)

I spoke with Dr. Christina Francis, a pro-life OB-GYN and head of the American Association of Pro-Life Ob-Gyns (AAPLOG) about these cases.

She says the overturn of Roe has changed nothing in her practice in Indiana, where she cares for women suffering:

• miscarriages

• ectopic pregnancies

• pre-term labor

• pre-eclampsia

• stillbirth

• and many other complications

Francis is adamant that even in states with abortion restrictions, good physicians know they can “immediately intervene” to save a pregnant woman’s life. 

“I can assess the patient in front of me and determine whether or not her pregnancy needs to end through a maternal–-fetal separation because of a life-threatening complication,” she said. “I don’t have patients dying.” 

States “may outlaw a D&C for the express purpose of performing an induced abortion, which intends the death of that fetal human being,” said Francis. “But a D&C to treat a miscarriage is still perfectly legal in every state in the country.”

As I wrote in my piece for National Review:

Most Christians who oppose abortion recognize the difference between a medical treatment to save a woman’s life that will almost certainly result in her baby dying and a procedure intended to end a pregnancy. They also know that miscarriage isn’t abortion.

In medical records, categorize miscarriage is categorized as a “spontaneous abortion,” whereas a pregnancy ended by medication or procedures intended for that purpose intended to end a pregnancy would be designated as an “induced abortion.”

Both could involve the same treatment, but that doesn’t mean that restrictions on induced abortion would apply to miscarriage.

“Two things can be the same thing procedurally but be very different ethically,” said Emily Geiger, director of education and outreach at the Equal Rights Institute, comparing it to the difference between cremation and burning someone alive.

“If the human being burned is still alive, that is horribly wrong,” she added. “That is murder. It is recognized in the law as really bad. [[Add a three-dot ellipsis after the period if any speech between these two sentences was omitted and you want to indicate that,” said Geiger. “If it’s cremation, that’s fine. We recognize that this is okay. This is a thing that is deceased.”

In short:

I thought that analogy was perfect. We know the difference between burning someone alive and cremating them and that is exactly the same difference between abortion and D&C for a miscarriage.

AND THIS IS KEY 🔑🔑🔑:

Prior to Roe v. Wade being overturned, the vast majority of restrictive states already had strong abortion regulations, some even banned as early as six weeks.

Doctors in these states have always had to grapple with abortion restrictions and make decisions about life-saving abortions and miscarriage care. 

QUOTABLES

*I interviewed the majority of the following & got these quotes from my reporting:

“Doctors and administrators who are misapplying the law need to be slammed with medical malpractice lawsuits, because they are conducting medical malpractice against these poor mothers and women who live through traumatic experiences. They’re failing to treat in accordance, not only with the law but with their Hippocratic Oath and duty to care for their patients.” 

— Chelsey Youman, National Director of Public Policy for the Human Coalition

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Abortion advocates know if they can convince people that abortion bans would prevent people getting basic care for miscarriage, they can get otherwise pro-life people to oppose abortion bans.

A doctor who refuses to remove the remains of a baby that no longer has a heartbeat is either “legally ignorant to an astonishing and culpable degree” or “deliberately deceiving the patients and, therefore, willfully endangering them.

Either way, they are acting with the utmost incompetence, whether it’s from the doctors, administrators, or legal teams.

— Dr. Callum Miller, ethicist and philosopher

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I’ve never thought twice of referring women maternal — fetal specialists who can determine if that’s necessary as a life-saving process. That is what you do when that is the necessary treatment.

If these laws are really causing physicians to delay treating women with ectopic pregnancies [and miscarriages] leading to the ectopic pregnancies to rupture resulting in severe morbidity and even mortality, then it would seem to me that the doctor would be guilty of malpractice.

— Dr. John David Gordon, medical director of Rejoice Fertility in Knoxville, Tennessee

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“I’m frustrated when I hears fellow Texans repeat the claims that women can’t get
miscarriage care because of due to abortion laws. In the past year, I’ve had two miscarriages and was treated without hesitancy. I miscarried naturally but ended up being hospitalized twice due to heavy blood loss and complications due to retained tissue. With my second miscarriage, I was taken into surgery immediately when I went back to the hospital.”

— Sarah H. Texas mother

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Hospitals and physicians “also need to be concerned about running afoul of federal law” to protect the health and life of mothers.

— Center for Reproductive Rights Attorney Marc Hearron (pro-choice advocate)

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Abortion advocates “know that what’s going to get most people in America to side with them potentially is if they instill fear that women are not going to be able to receive essential health care. And it’s a lie — all you have to do again is look at those of us who have practiced this way our entire careers.”

— Dr. Christina Francis, OB-GYN

To date, hospitals are facing investigations and penalties for violating the law by not adequately caring for women.

None have been called into question for performing an abortion protect the health and life of mothers.

🚨🚨🚨 According to the Association of American Medical Colleges:

“To date, no physician has been criminally prosecuted in any state for providing an abortion that was due to a medical emergency.”

So, in 2.5 years since Roe was overturned, not ONE doctor has been criminally prosecuted for an abortion in any state.

The main legal action we’ve seen is women pushing back and taking legal action for NOT getting necessary care.

I understand feeling fearful at first, but by now it should be clear that no one is out to “get” doctors doing what they see as medically necessary for an emergency situation.

People complain about the laws being “vague,” but if they weren’t somewhat open-ended, they would rob doctors of their “reasonable medical judgment” — something they must do in all kinds of medical situations where people’s lives are at risk. It’s no different with pregnant patients. Every state allows for an abortion in these circumstances and the doctor is allowed to make the call. No woman has to be on death’s doorstep to do so.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, said that “nowhere in this law,” even in Texas, “ is a requirement that the threat [to the mother’s life] be immediate.”

“At the time of diagnosis of a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication, physicians should be able to offer intervention,” said Skop.

Though places like the American College of Ob-Gyns (ACOG) should be guiding and assuring doctors to have no fear in practicing medicine, they aren’t. They contribute to the misinformation and the deaths of women who are scared to seek care when they need it.

Lastly, I’ll say this: No matter what medical situation, there will always be tragedies. This will not be perfect — that’s impossible.

But the government exists to protect our rights and the first right is the right to life.

Our eternal selves commence at the moment of conception - and that’s just a fact — whether we live 5 days in the womb or 105 years on planet Earth and an eternity Heaven.

Pro-life ob-gyns haven’t had any problems with caring for patients the same way they always have. This can assure other doctors that they too have nothing to fear.

Please read my full piece in National Review & share if you find it worth sharing:)

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