Do Pro-Life Laws Kill Women?

The sanitized language used to make abortion sound palatable—women’s healthcare, women’s reproductive rights, and terminating a pregnancy—is dishonest and conceals the horror of what’s really happening in an abortion, intentionally misleading and confusing people. Pro-abortion activists frequently lie about and smear any pro-life legislation, keeping the focus off the baby whose life is being saved and turning it to the mother and the circumstances (usually in hypotheticals) surrounding the conception. In 2022, we actually did an entire article series answering these sorts of arguments.

But yet another example of deception happened recently in the media with the story of Amber Thurman, a single mother who became pregnant with twins and sought an abortion. According to reports, she lived in Georgia whose “heartbeat law” prevented her from being able to procure an abortion, so she traveled out of state and was prescribed a chemical abortion.

Shortly after taking the second pill to end her children’s lives and deliver them, she began experiencing complications. By the time she went to the hospital, she was septic. For some reason that the hospital has not disclosed, a D&C (a standard surgical procedure that is only illegal in Georgia for the express purpose of ending a child’s life, but these children would already have been dead due to the drugs their mother took) was not performed, her condition deteriorated, an emergency hysterectomy was performed, but she passed away during the procedure.

Many pro-abortion activists have latched onto this story to show that pro-life laws kill mothers—yes, they are really arguing that laws designed to save the lives of unborn children and protect them from slaughter in the womb are deadly to mothers. But more on that in a moment.

Amber Thurman’s death was tragic and entirely preventable.

First, I want to highlight that these activists are right about one thing—Amber Thurman’s death was tragic and entirely preventable; if she had chosen to love and care for her two babies, instead of having them killed, she and her children would probably not have died during pregnancy. Yes, that sounds harsh but it’s the truth, and speaking the truth in no way means we do not have deep sympathy for her family and view both her death and the death of her children as heartbreaking.

But is a pro-life law in Georgia really responsible for her death? This article from LifeSite News does a great job looking at the details and explaining what really happened, but I just want to focus on one claim the pro-abortion activists “reporting” on this story have made. They claim (and I’ve seen this claim many times when “heartbeat bills” and other pro-life legislation are up for discussion) that pro-life laws basically make D&C procedures illegal, which threatens the lives of women.

This is not true. As I said earlier, D&Cs (dilation and curettage) are routinely used for a wide variety of uterine conditions, such as a retained placenta after birth or in miscarriage care. They are also used to dismember a living baby and remove him or her from the womb. Obviously, there’s a world of difference between removing a placenta or a baby that has already passed away by natural causes and intentionally killing a baby. Yet the two are routinely conflated by abortion activists to make it appear as if standard care practices are somehow at risk when pro-life legislation is passed.

It’s these kinds of fearmongering lies spread by the media that “mislead women into believing that every D&C is an abortion and that every D&C procedure—regardless of what it’s for—is illegal under pro-life laws . . . These lies have the potential to be both emotionally destructive and physically harmful to women.” (As one example, see this blog where I share the story of a pro-life woman accused of having an abortion because she had a D&C for miscarriage care).

Next time you hear someone object to laws protecting unborn children on the grounds that women will die, remember the actual facts about these laws and procedures like a D&C.

Next time you hear someone object to laws protecting unborn children on the grounds that women will die, remember the actual facts about these laws and procedures like a D&C.

And those who promote and defend abortion should stand in fear of the God who says:

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16–19, emphasis mine)

And remember: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

Get More Answers on Answers News

This item was discussed today on Answers News with cohosts Roger Patterson, Jessica DeFord, and Kevin Hadsal. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum, broadcast on our Answers in Genesis YouTube channel, and posted to Answers TV. We also covered the following topics:

• Lost biblical tree “resurrected.”
• 485 million years of climate change?
• Why are so many children going “no contact” with parents?
• And more!

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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.