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Georgia Fires Entire Maternal Mortality Panel After Reporting on Abortion Ban Deaths
"This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm," said one journalist. "Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Nov 21, 2024
Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublicareported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.
ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.
"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.
In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.
Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.
ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."
As the outlet detailed:
Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.
"They did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, one of the groups challenging Georgia's abortion ban in court. "To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?"
Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.
"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."
New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletterAbortion, Every Day and the bookAbortion, also argued that Georgia officials fired the panel members because "they didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
"I wrote about this in my book—this is how they cover up our deaths," Valenti continued. "In Idaho, they disbanded the Maternal Mortality Review Committee altogether; in Texas, they put a well-known anti-abortion activist on there to skew the data."
"I guarantee you that when Georgia replaces those seats on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, they're going to put anti-abortion activists on there," she added. "Just watch."
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'MAGA Abortion Bans Kill Women': Pregnant Texas Teen Dead After Care Denied
"Make no mistake Donald Trump's abortion ban did this," said one reproductive rights leader. "We must stop him."
Nov 01, 2024
Nevaeh Crain would have turned 20 on Friday. Instead, she is yet another American woman killed by a Republican abortion ban.
After reporting on Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who died because of a Georgia ban enacted in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court reversingRoe v. Wade in 2022, ProPublica turned to Texas, sharing the stories of Josseli Barnica and Crain, who died at 18 years old last year, having endured a sepsis complication, the miscarriage of a daughter she planned to name Lillian, and delayed medical care.
"On the morning of their baby shower, October 28, 2023, Crain woke with a headache," ProPublica reported Friday. Soon vomiting with a fever, she sought care at two Texas hospitals a total of three times over 20 hours. As the outlet detailed: "On her third trip, a doctor insisted on two ultrasounds to 'confirm fetal demise' before moving her to intensive care. Hours later, Crain died."
As journalists Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana explained:
ProPublica condensed more than 800 pages of Crain's medical records into a four-page timeline in consultation with two maternal-fetal medicine specialists; reporters reviewed it with nine doctors, including researchers at prestigious universities, OB-GYNs who regularly handle miscarriages, and experts in emergency medicine and maternal health.
Some said the first ER missed warning signs of infection that deserved attention. All said that the doctor at the second hospital should never have sent Crain home when her signs of sepsis hadn't improved. And when she returned for the third time, all said there was no medical reason to make her wait for two ultrasounds before taking aggressive action to save her.
"This is how these restrictions kill women," said Dr. Dara Kass, a former regional director at the Department of Health and Human Services and an emergency room physician in New York. "It is never just one decision, it's never just one doctor, it's never just one nurse."
Crain and her mother, Candace Fails, "believed abortion was morally wrong," according to ProPublica. "The teen could only support it in the context of rape or life-threatening illness, she used to tell her mother. They didn't care whether the government banned it, just how their Christian faith guided their own actions."
Fails told the reporters that she still thought the doctors were obligated to do everything they could to save Crain, even if it meant losing the pregnancy, but they seemed more concerned with the fetal heartbeat. "I know it sounds selfish, and God knows I would rather have both of them, but if I had to choose," she said, "I would have chosen my daughter."
Although a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), requires emergency departments that accept Medicare to provide patients with "necessary stabilizing treatment," which the Biden-Harris administration argues includes abortions, The Associated Pressrevealed in August that over 100 patients nationwide have been "turned away or negligently treated since 2022."
Republican officials in multiple states, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have fought against the Biden-Harris administration's interpretation of EMLATA, and last month the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision barring emergency abortions that violate Texas law.
ProPublica's reporting on Crain's death comes as early voting is underway for the November 5 elections. American voters are set to choose the next president—former Republican President Donald Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris—and which party controls each chamber of Congress.
Democrats have heavily campaigned on reproductive freedom, highlighting that Trump appointed three of the justices behind the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that ended nationwide abortion rights and he plans to vote against a Florida ballot measure that would outlaw pre-viability abortion bans in the state, where a six-week restriction is now in effect. In September, Harris, a former U.S. senator, endorsed eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe.
The GOP controls the U.S. House of Representatives but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has held recent votes forcing Republicans to go on record against federal bills that would protect abortion care, birth control, and fertility treatments. Texas Congressman Colin Allred, the Democrat challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), took note of Crain's story on Friday.
"This is tragic. My heart goes out to Nevaeh's family," Allred said on social media. "Texas doctors can't do their jobs because of Ted Cruz's cruel abortion ban. Cruz even lobbied SCOTUS to allow states to ban life-saving emergency abortions. We can't afford six more years of Ted Cruz."
Others also responded to the new reporting by directing ire at anti-choice Republican officials working to restrict reproductive care.
"This latest story from ProPublica about Nevaeh Crain is gutting," said Cecile Richards, co-founder of Abortion in America and former president of Planned Parenthood. "She was a teenager who should be alive today, and isn't, because of Texas' abortion bans and refusal to provide lifesaving care even in a dire emergency."
Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis.)—who has publicly shared her own pre-Roe abortion story—declared that "MAGA abortion bans KILL WOMEN."
Center for American Progress' Alex Wall similarly said: "This is sickening. Nevaeh Crain should be alive today. Donald Trump's MAGA abortion bans are killing women."
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, which has endorsed Harris, stressed that "these Republican monsters in Texas fought the Biden-Harris administration efforts to protect women like Nevaeh and Josseli."
"There is a special place in hell for Ken Paxton," she continued, calling out the Texas attorney general. "Make no mistake Donald Trump's abortion ban did this. We must stop him."
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Blinken Faces Calls to Resign Over Lie That Israel Is Not Blocking Gaza Aid
"When a senior American official lies to Congress in the middle of genocide so that the government can keep funding that genocide, he is deliberately flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people."
Sep 25, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced calls to resign on Tuesday following a ProPublica report detailing how he contradicted the findings of his own department's experts in order to maintain the flow of American weaponry to Israel, which has repeatedly used the arms to commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
"Secretary Blinken and the Biden administration ignored Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Gaza—which is a violation of American law—and lied about it to Congress," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "When a senior American official lies to Congress in the middle of genocide so that the government can keep funding that genocide, he is deliberately flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people who desperately need our government to stop funding their slaughter."
"He must resign," Awad added, "and the Biden administration must be held accountable for its violation of the law and its complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza."
"The American people deserve honest and upright leaders to represent their values and protect their interests."
ProPublica's story provides a thorough account—backed by internal communications and other documents—of how the Blinken-led State Department delivered a report to Congress that was at odds with the conclusions of experts within the department as well as those of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The latter agency told Blinken directly in an April memo that Israel was deliberately impeding shipments of U.S. humanitarian assistance, a finding consistent with assessments from the United Nations and outside groups. Under U.S. law, the federal government cannot provide arms or other military equipment to countries obstructing American humanitarian aid.
But in a May report to Congress, the State Department concluded that the Israeli government was not "prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
One State Department official, Stacy Gilbert, resigned over the final report to Congress, saying in a statement following her departure that "there is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid" and that "to deny this is absurd and shameful."
The aid obstructions are ongoing. According to an analysis released last week by a coalition of human rights organizations, Israel's siege is currently blocking over 80% of food aid from reaching Gaza as the enclave faces famine.
Awad of CAIR said Tuesday that "Secretary Blinken may have committed a crime with his lies."
"The American people deserve honest and upright leaders to represent their values and protect their interests," said Awad.
Others echoed the call for Blinken to step down or be removed by lawmakers. Congressional Republicans are currently pushing to hold Blinken in contempt, but for a matter entirely unrelated to U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza.
Sam Perlo-Freeman, an academic who has worked as a researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said Blinken "should resign or be impeached."
"Of course," he added, "most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth."
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