Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at Family Research Council, says it’s a dangerous path Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen as she turns the death of two Georgia women into a campaign stunt. Amber Thurman and Candi Miller each experienced complications in their pregnancies after taking abortion drugs.
Georgia’s heartbeat law states that “no abortion shall be performed if the unborn child has a detectable human heartbeat except in the event of a medical emergency or medically futile pregnancy.” OB-GYNs have criticized the Amber Thurman narrative as a misleading story being pushed by the media and Democrats, Fox News reported.
Harris, not for the first time, blamed the women's deaths on Donald Trump and Georgia’s law. “Donald Trump still refuses to acknowledge the pain and suffering he has caused … women are being denied care during miscarriages,” she told the crowd, The Guardian reported.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Georgia) and state Rep. Mark Newton have stated publicly their belief that Georgia’s laws had nothing to do with the deaths.
"We never deny a woman an abortion because it's going to harm her in some way. She will always be protected," McCormick said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.
"You have every right to an abortion, even with that heartbeat law," he continued. "So, let's make that very clear right now: when they say there's no exceptions, there's never any law in any state where there's no exceptions. That doesn't exist. That's simply not the way it works. The mother's life is always protected.
"With that said, it doesn't mean it's easy to get an abortion just because you have a complication or because something goes wrong," McCormick added.
Serious side effects for abortion drugs
Research by the Charlotte Lozier Institute shows increased frequency of emergency room visits and increased severity of complications for those who have used abortion drugs, AFN reported.
The rate of abortion-related emergency room visits following a chemical abortion increased over 500% from 2002-2015, according to analysis of Medicaid claims data. Over the same period, chemical abortions within the study population increased from 4.4% to 34.1% of total abortions.
Ignoring the data to push a pro-abortion political position is “really irresponsible,” Kilgannon told Washington Watch host Jody Hice Friday, referring to the approach being taken by the Harris/Walz ticket. More than that, the Harris campaign’s false narrative is dangerous to the lives of the women whose rights she says she’s fighting to protect, she explained.
“For the Democratic Party to campaign on this issue this way … it’s disrespectful to women,” Kilgannon argued.
“We should be very concerned. This regime of drugs sends one out of every 20 women who take it to the emergency room. So, I think we should be very concerned because more and more often it’s not a surgical abortion that takes the life of a child but a drug-induced abortion like this one.”
Harris blames delay on state law
In an interview with the “Call Her Daddy” podcast earlier this month, Harris implied the state law led to a delay of service from the hospital:
"Here's the thing that's so messed up about this," Harris told host Alex Cooper. "Some of these people will say ‘Whoa, but I do believe in exceptions, I believe that there should be an exception in terms of the life of the mother.’ You know what that means in practical terms? She's almost dead before you decide to give her care. What, so we're going to have public health policy that says a doctor, a medical professional, waits until you're at death's door before they give you care? That's outrageous … where is the humanity?"
Reporting from The Washington Examiner, citing The Abortion Defense Network, says medical professionals are allowed by law to provide services when danger to the mother is clear. This isn’t ambiguous, The Examiner writes:
“Everyone who studied the law knew these facts about it, including available medical responses such as dilation and curettage (D&C) or dilation and extraction (D&E). Take it from the Abortion Defense Network, whose briefing paper on Georgia abortion law states: ‘Georgia law allows abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable [approximately six weeks] in cases where a physician determines in their ‘reasonable medical judgment’ that there is a ‘medical emergency.’”
The Examiner continued:
“The Abortion Defense Network further states: ‘treatment for miscarriage where there is no cardiac activity (including medications, D&C, D&E, labor induction) are not abortions under Georgia law and thus are not prohibited by its abortion ban. Miscarriage care is legal, so long as there is no cardiac activity. With respect to self-managed abortion, it is legal for providers to give medical care during or after a self-managed abortion provided there is no cardiac activity.’
“Georgia law clearly allowed the hospital to provide the D&C that Thurman needed and that ProPublica falsely stated was illegal. Why did the hospital wait 20 hours after she arrived to take her to the operating room?
"That’s the central question in Thurman’s case. Digging deeper suggests the blame for Thurman’s death lies not with pro-life laws but with pro-choice lies,” The Examiner reported.
The abortion issue is so politicized that “if a woman is having intense cramping or suffering heavy bleeding as a result of having taken these pills, they’re often discouraged from seeking help; or they’re encouraged if they do seek help to lie about the fact that they’ve taken these pills,” Kilgannon said.
Democratic rhetoric blocking conversation
Perhaps the greatest threat, Kilgannon suggests, is how the rhetoric puts pro-lifers on defense and prevents meaningful discussion about how to work within pro-life laws to protect mothers and their unborn children.
“This is typical of the Democratic Party right now," she stated. "They do the same thing when they talk about, a much less serious issue, but student loans.
"No one can have a conversation about how to serve women and how to help families, how to hold men responsible for the babies who are being killed in the womb, the men who help create them. We’re not having any of those conversations because we have to correct the record on the lies that are constantly told about the abortion pill and abortion in general.”
