[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]
By Nancy Flanders
Live Action News
Two years ago today, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its June 24, 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Since then, the abortion industry and its friends in the media have ramped up the frequency with which they tell abortion-related lies in order to convince Americans that induced abortion is a medically necessary procedure. It’s not.
The number-one strategy for convincing Americans that women need abortion seems to be the exploitation of heartbreaking stories that play to their compassion and empathy.
Lie #1: Women will die from pregnancy complications
A seemingly endless stream of tragic stories related to pregnancy has been flowing through media outlets since Roe fell. One of the most shared stories aimed at evoking sympathy was that of Kate Cox.
Cox learned during her pregnancy that her baby girl had Trisomy 18, a condition that the media referred to as ‘incompatible with life,’ when in reality, thanks to advances in medicine, people with the condition are living longer. The media claimed that Cox ‘needed’ an abortion for medical reasons — namely so that she could have a different, “healthy” baby in the future. Cox had been through two previous C-sections and was at risk of uterine rupture and loss of fertility with each of her subsequent pregnancies. She knew that risk when she became pregnant with her third child and was willing to take those risks until her daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. Then, suddenly, the risks mattered, and the media convinced Americans that Cox needed an abortion. But Cox simply didn’t want to take those same risks with a child who had a disability. Cox just announced she is pregnant again. What she didn’t say was this pregnancy carries the same risks to her health due to her previous two C-sections, but she is willing to carry to term, because this baby has so far been deemed “healthy.”
In another tragic story, Kristen Anaya was 16 and a half weeks pregnant when her water broke. She was suffering from preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), but according to her recounting of the story, doctors said she had to “get very sick” — she did develop sepsis — before they could help her, because abortion is prohibited in Texas unless the mother’s life is at risk.
The standard of care for PPROM is not induced abortion; it’s induced preterm delivery, when necessary. Cleveland Clinic explains that a doctor should keep a woman with PPROM on bed rest in the hospital and attempt to prevent preterm delivery while monitoring the mother for signs of infection — not kill her baby. If the baby must be delivered or labor is unable to be stopped, this is not an induced abortion. It’s preterm delivery, and even if the baby is too young to survive, it is not considered an abortion. This leads us to Lie #2.
Lie #2: Pre-term delivery is an abortion
Another viral story aimed at evoking compassion from voters is that of Amanda Zurawski.
Zurawski also lives in Texas, and at 18 weeks, she suffered cervical insufficiency (also called incompetent cervix) and PPROM. After being examined by doctors, she was told a miscarriage was inevitable, but since her daughter had a heartbeat, there was nothing doctors could do.
There was absolutely something doctors could do.
According to Dr. Christina Francis, board member and CEO-elect of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, women with cervical insufficiency can be treated with a stitch, which is placed in the cervix to hold the baby in until she can survive outside the womb. Doctors would then carefully monitor the woman for signs of infection and provide the appropriate treatment, which would be the induction of labor — not an induced abortion. Inducing labor to save a woman’s life is completely legal in every state, because it is not the same as inducing an abortion. Pro-life laws prohibit induced abortion in which the preborn child is intentionally and actively killed.
Yet Zurawski was sent home for three days, and she unsurprisingly developed an infection.
When doctors finally did act, after Zurawski was suffering a sepsis infection, the procedure they carried out was a “premature delivery” for a child who was too young to survive, not an abortion.
As for the PPROM she suffered, Zurawski’s doctors didn’t monitor her as they should have. They failed her, and they failed her daughter, Willow.
Zurawski’s claims eventually made their way through the media into the courthouse and finally into a pro-abortion advertisement for Biden’s reelection campaign. But pro-life laws weren’t to blame for her tragic situation — negligent doctors were.
To be clear:
Induced abortion is when a living preborn child is intentionally killed prior to delivery through dismemberment, induced cardiac arrest, suction abortion, or abortion drugs. The purpose of the abortion procedure in an induced abortion is to produce a dead baby.
Induced preterm delivery, on the other hand, is when the child is delivered prematurely due to a medical emergency, and doctors work to save both the mother and child. If the child is too young to survive or unable to be saved, it is a tragic effect of having to be delivered early. Pregnancies can be ended without killing the baby first.
See the difference? Watch the video below for more details:
Lie #3: Women will be denied miscarriage treatment
A recent story spun to make pro-life laws look dangerous was that of radio host Ryan Hamilton of Texas, which is clearly the state that has taken the most media heat for its pro-life laws. Hamilton said his wife was denied miscarriage care three times. However, doctors at Surepoint Emergency Center confirmed that their baby did not have a heartbeat and prescribed Hamilton’s wife misoprostol, which has various medical uses, including as a miscarriage treatment. (It is also the second drug used in the abortion pill regimen.) It causes contractions which expel the baby’s body. In other words, doctors prescribed a miscarriage treatment to Hamilton’s wife on her first visit to Surepoint Emergency Center.
Hamilton, however, wanted a D&C procedure to be carried out, which is used in both first-trimester abortion and in cases of incomplete miscarriage. When she was not given a D&C — a surgical procedure that doctors may have deemed unnecessary at the time — Hamilton appears to have assumed pro-life laws were to blame. But Surepoint does not list surgery as one of its services, and misoprostol has long been used as standard procedure for miscarriage management. Doctors at Surepoint were in line with prescribing misoprostol according to the guidelines of the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Hamilton’s wife was not denied miscarriage care; she received it. It just wasn’t what Hamilton was expecting.
It seems that the media’s fabrication that women are being denied miscarriage care influenced Hamilton’s assumption this is what was happening to his wife, further perpetuating this giant pro-abortion lie. The only act that pro-life laws prohibit is the intentional killing of a preborn child. Miscarriage care is 100% legal in every state; even Planned Parenthood knows this. Read more on Hamilton’s story here.
Lie #4: The abortion pill is safe; Abortion Pill Reversal is not
The abortion industry is determined to ensure it can still sell abortions in pro-life states — and anywhere it can. This would require the lifting of safety protocols that had been in place on the abortion pill since it was approved for use in the United States more than two decades ago. As the Dobbs case was in the hands of the Supreme Court in December 2021, the FDA decided to weaken the abortion pill’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) safety protocols and permanently allow the abortion pill to be shipped by mail. Abortion advocates quickly revealed the next part of their strategy to expand abortion — allowing for the sale of over-the-counter abortion pills.
The day after the FDA decision, former NARAL board member Renee Bracey Sherman and abortionist Daniel Grossman wrote an op-ed for The Nation, in which they openly advocated for over-the-counter abortion.
Bracey and Grossman wrote, “… advocates and health care providers in the United States could be thinking creatively about what might come next, including providing abortion pills even before you’re pregnant to have on hand if needed — or eventually over-the-counter access.”
To gain support, the lie that the abortion pill is “safe” had to be spread, and the bold claim was made that the abortion pill is “safer than Tylenol” (acetaminophen). Spoiler alert — it’s not.
As previously reported by Live Action News, a 2016 study examined trends in acetaminophen-related adverse events, and tracked the rate of annual ER visits relative to acetaminophen’s annual sales. It found that, for the year 2012, there were 282.1 acetaminophen-related ER visits for every 1 (one) million units sold. Assuming that the usual dosage is two tablets, it would mean that .056% of doses sold resulted in a hospital visit.
Numerous studies have shown that the rate at which women seek emergency medical care after taking the abortion pill is approximately six percent (6%). That’s 107 times greater than the rate for acetaminophen/Tylenol.
Also — remember Hamilton’s story? After three doses of misoprostol (the second drug in the abortion pill regimen), he found his wife heavily bleeding and unconscious on the bathroom floor. He used this traumatic situation to claim his wife was given poor treatment because of pro-life laws and to promote abortion — but his wife took one of the very drugs included in the so-called “safe” abortion pill regimen. The National Abortion Federation states that the abortion pill can cause excessive blood loss (hypovolemia), lightheadedness, dizziness, weakness, fatigue, and rapid heart rate (tachycardia), and that heavy blood loss occurs after misoprostol is taken. The trauma that Hamilton and his wife endured is the same trauma that women being sold the abortion pill can experience — but they are told it is completely safe for them to take it at home, alone, without a physical exam.
Women sold the abortion pill without a doctor’s visit are also at increased risk for dangerous effects of mifepristone — the first drug of the abortion pill regimen. The online abortion pill website Hey Jane explains on its website:
Since Hey Jane does not require blood tests or ultrasounds:
An undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy puts women at risk of fallopian tube rupture, and incomplete abortion puts women at greater risk of infection, both of which can be deadly.
There is nothing about online or over-the-counter abortion pill sales that is good for women — such sales only benefit abortion industry bank accounts.
While claiming the abortion pill is safe, abortion advocates are also pushing the lie that Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) is not safe. APR can help a woman arrest the abortion pill process and save her baby, if she begins the process after taking the first drug of the abortion pill regimen — mifepristone. Mifepristone counteracts the naturally occurring pregnancy hormone progesterone, which helps sustain the pregnancy and ensures the baby is nourished and receiving oxygen. Through APR, progesterone injections or tablets are used to try to counteract the effects of mifepristone and save the baby.
Abortion advocates claim APR is not proven to be safe, however, progesterone has been used for decades to prevent miscarriage in women who have a history of early pregnancy loss.
“What we are offering women is a bioidentical hormone… safely given to women since the 1950s,” Christa Brown, BSN, RN, and senior director of medical impact with Heartbeat International, explained. “It’s commonly given for other things like recurrent miscarriage or preterm labor. It’s a very common hormone given to women. And it’s not progestin, which is what is in hormonal birth control. This is a bioidentical type of progesterone. So, it’s very safe for the moms and it’s also safe for the babies.”
Still, California filed a lawsuit to prevent Heartbeat International from advertising APR as “safe and effective.” This leads us to lie #5.
Lie #5: Pregnancy centers are fake clinics
A report released earlier this year revealed that the 2,750 pro-life pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) in the United States provided nearly $367.9 million worth of services and material goods to more than 16 million clients in 2022. The report, Hope for a New Generation, was published in May by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Care Net, Heartbeat International, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, and the Option Ultrasound Program by Focus on the Family. It states that in 2022, pregnancy centers assisted over 974,000 new clients and provided goods and services to women, youth, and families. This includes ultrasounds, baby gear, baby clothes, diapers, formula, health care services, and parent education — free of charge. Over 97% of the clients served reported having a positive experience.
Yet, abortion advocates have come out in full force against PRCs since the Dobbs decision was first leaked in May 2022. Pro-life pregnancy centers have been vandalized, firebombed, and have faced political attacks as part of the abortion lobby’s plan to increase abortion access.
Politically, PRCs have faced attacks aimed at shutting them down. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for a “crackdown” on pro-life PRCs in a Senate speech in August 2022 and then began an unfounded inquiry against Heartbeat International, the largest network of pro-life PRCs.
States have been attacking PRCs as well. New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin issued a consumer alert about PRCs because they “do not provide abortion care.” New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer followed that up by standing in front of the Lighthouse Pregnancy Resource Center and calling it a “deceptive” and “brainwashing cult” clinic.
In 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called it “horrifying” that “there are more crisis pregnancy centers in California than abortion care clinics,” because pregnancy centers “do not provide abortion or abortion referral.”
Since 2019, PRCs have seen a 12% increase in ultrasound services, a 41% increase in clients attending parenting classes, and a 27% increase in STI testing. And the number of pregnancy centers associated with a maternity home doubled from 24 to 46.
Pregnancy centers typically rely on volunteers to keep operations running, but from 2019 to 2022 there was an 18% increase in paid staff members and a 26% increase in paid medical staff members at the pro-life centers. More than a quarter of the paid staff and about 12% of volunteers now have medical licenses, and 82% of the pregnancy centers now offer medical services on-site.
Still, the abortion industry wants these free and heavily relied-on services shut down. This isn’t out of concern for women. It’s because every time a pregnant woman facing a difficult situation walks into a PRC, she might choose life, not abortion. This takes potential money out of the pockets of the abortion industry.
These lies work together to convince Americans that pro-life organizations only want to control women, and that pro-lifers — especially pro-life politicians — don’t care about women’s safety. But the truth tells a very different story. Pro-life organizations and laws are focused on helping women and children and ensuring that no woman ever believes the lie that she has to kill her own baby in order to save herself emotionally, physically, or financially.
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]
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