Amber Nicole Thurman was a 28-year-old who lived in Georgia at the time of her death in 2022. Thurman, a single mother to a young son, became pregnant with twins and sought an abortion “to preserve her newfound stability,” according to ProPublica. A trip to a North Carolina abortion clinic was hampered by delays. By the time she got there, Thurman had missed her appointment for a dilation and curettage. 

Instead of rescheduling, she went ahead with a medication abortion and took the first pill, mifepristone, at the clinic. The following day she took the second pill, misoprostol. What started out as cramping turned into an alarming amount of blood and pain. Thurman lost consciousness and was taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in obvious distress. Instead of surgically removing the remaining fetal tissue that had not been expelled, doctors gave her multiple rounds of antibiotics and continued to monitor her. By the time she was finally taken to the operating room, it was too late. Thurman died of “acute severe sepsis” on Aug. 19, 2022, 20 hours after arriving at the hospital for treatment. 

In its assessment of Thurman’s case, the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee came to the conclusion that “there is a ‘good chance’ providing a D&C earlier could have prevented Amber Thurman’s death.” Additionally, “the committee highlighted Piedmont’s ‘lack of policies/procedures in place to evacuate uterus immediately’ and recommended all hospitals implement policies ‘to treat a septic abortion on an ongoing basis.” It is clear the fault and failure of treatment lies with doctors and other care staff at Piedmont Henry Hospital. 

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is all about women. Her abbreviated 2024 campaign represents the party’s second chance to make history by electing the nation’s first female president. As such, she has made abortion a major part of the Harris-Walz platform. This is in no small part due to her opponent, Donald Trump. The former president was instrumental in bringing an end to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey by way of nominating conservative jurists to the Supreme Court. The changing abortion landscape is an affront to progressives. And Harris is eager to blame Trump for anything related to reproductive rights. By willfully ignoring the facts, she can continue to create a narrative of uncaring pro-life Americans and Republicans, all of whom surely must be cruelly indifferent to women and their needs. 

On Oct. 16, the Harris-Walz campaign released a new ad focused on Thurman. It opens with family members mentioning she had complications. Thurman’s mother says, “My daughter is gone because of what Donald Trump did.” Moments later, she adds, “I’ve never been a political person. Never. I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she showed me she really cared. I felt her sincerity and I felt her strength.” The ad ends with a clip of Harris at a rally saying, “We will speak her name: Amber Nicole Thurman.” The ad is touching. You can sense the family’s anguish. The whole thing sends a powerful message. That message is false. Thurman’s death was indeed preventable, as the ad suggests. But even if one approaches it from a view that supports abortion rights, glaring, life-threatening errors occurred in the hours of delay by the hospital and surgical staff. 

Thurman is not dead because of the Dobbs decision. She is not dead because of Trump. She is dead because of abortion medication, which can be dangerous, and wholly inadequate medical care from healthcare professionals who should have known better. Harris knows this but prefers to use Thurman and others as proof that Trump’s actions are literally killing women. 

Georgia’s abortion ban is expressly clear. The law prohibits most abortions after the six-week mark. But the law allows for certain procedures. According to a guide on the Georgia law published by the Abortion Defense Network, “Georgia law allows abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable in cases where a physician determines in their ‘reasonable medical judgment’ that there is a ‘medical emergency.’ It defines ‘medical emergency’ as ‘a condition in which an abortion is necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.'” Furthermore:

The following are explicitly excluded from Georgia law’s definition of abortion: (1) removing “an ectopic pregnancy,”; and (2) removing “a dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion.” While undefined, it is generally understood that in the context of Georgia’s definition of abortion, “dead” means that there is no cardiac activity present in the embryo or fetus. This means that treatment for ectopic pregnancy (including use of methotrexate and surgical removal) and 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. 

Performing a D&C on Thurman would not have violated the Georgia abortion law. Claims to the contrary are nothing short of deception for political gain.  

During a recent appearance on the podcast Call Her Daddy, Harris relayed Thurman’s story. Both the host, Alexandra Cooper, and Harris cited abortion bans as the reason for Thurman’s death. The show is incredibly popular, ranking second only to Joe Rogan’s podcast. The fan base is 70% women, 76% of whom are under the age of 35. The audience is receptive to the kind of lies Harris disseminates. This is the base Harris wants to reach: women of reproductive age who will accept the narrative that abortion bans cause death. On Oct. 20, Harris appeared at a rally in Atlanta. Once again, the vice president openly blamed the 45th president, saying, “Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and the suffering he has caused.”

Abortion is a long-standing sacrament of the Democratic Party. Over the decades, it morphed from a “necessary evil” that should be “safe, legal, rare” to just another part of women’s healthcare. The number of abortions is actually up 11% since 2020, even while Democrats point to abortion bans as harming and restricting women. The Democrats’ attempt to normalize the ending of a human, unborn life has changed the discussions surrounding it. This was true before Dobbs was handed down. But since Dobbs, the abortion industry and its proponents have turned themselves into the victims. And the perpetrator in all this is the incarnation of patriarchal evil itself, Donald J. Trump. Harris is more than happy to propagate this idea as she takes her one and only shot at the highest office in the land. 

Harris takes aim at Trump for causing the pain and suffering of many, including Thurman and Candi Miller, another woman who died as a result of incomplete uterine evacuation following a medication abortion. She avoids placing the responsibility on the shoulders of those who deserve it. All this while she refuses to point to Big Pharma as a major part of the problem as it relates to medication abortion. Harris is keen to address Big Pharma, except when it comes to harming her bottom line: the powerful pro-abortion narrative. 

Not long after she became the Democratic Party’s substitute for the 2024 presidential campaign, Harris began talking about “taking on Big Pharma” and prescription drug prices, among other things. 

During an Aug. 15 speech with President Joe Biden, not long after the candidate torch was passed, Harris touted her record standing against drug manufacturers: “My entire career, I have worked to hold bad actors accountable and lower the cost of prescription drugs. As attorney general of California, I took on pharmaceutical companies for deceptive marketing and illegally inflating the cost of drugs — and we won billions of dollars.” Both Biden and Harris took what Politico described as a “pharma victory lap.” But according to Open Secrets, both politicians rank high on the list of those who have received major donations from drug companies and health products between 1990 and 2024. Biden ranks first and has received $9,079,320. Harris has received $5,829,621 and ranks third, sitting behind Barack Obama and just above Hillary Clinton. 

Recently, Louisiana became the first state to target and categorize abortion medication as “controlled dangerous substance drugs.” The bill, signed in May, went into effect on Oct. 1 and requires mifepristone and misoprostol be “securely stored … in locked/secured cabinet, compartment, or other system.” The precautions are necessary. A medical study titled “Deaths and Severe Adverse Events after the use of Mifepristone as an Abortifacient from September 2000 to February 2019” concluded, “Significant morbidity and mortality have occurred following the use of mifepristone as an abortifacient.” The study indicated, “Hemorrhage occurred more often in those who took mifepristone and misoprostol (51.44%) than in those who took mifepristone alone (22.41%).” In 2023, 63% of all abortions were medication abortions. That statistic is up 10% from 2020.

If Harris cared about women more than political reward, she would take on a predatory pharmaceutical industry that makes a huge profit off of dangerous abortion medication. It is big business for Big Pharma. 

GenBioPro is the company that manufactures the majority amount of mifepristone in the nation. In April 2023, about a year after Dobbs and in light of a Texas judge’s decision regarding abortion medication, states with permissive abortion laws began purchasing and stockpiling the drug. Washington state alone purchased 30,000 doses at a reported cost of $1.28 million. This comes out to roughly $42.66 per dose. The total number of abortions in 2023 was 1,037,000. Of those, 63% were medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Assuming the drug mifepristone is approximately $42.66 per dose, this translates to a revenue of $27,870,204.60 for GenBioPro. This is without factoring in the second drug in the two-dose medication abortion regimen, misoprostol. 

Big Pharma is clearly profiting off the manufactured desperation preached by Harris and other abortion rights supporters. By continuing to make Trump the bad guy in scenarios where women face complications following medication abortion, Big Pharma is off the hook. And Harris can make herself out to be a concerned politician seeking voter support when she is purposely ignoring the real source of the problem. All while benefiting from pharmaceutical industry donations. 

Harris doesn’t have long to make her case to the people. But given her recent appearances and statements, she hopes to sway undecided minds by claiming females in America have it worse under Trump. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

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Trump is a lot of things, but he’s not responsible for the pain and suffering of women of reproductive age. He is not responsible for a predatory abortion industry that pushes women toward surgical abortion or medication abortion, both of which are on the rise. He is not responsible for dangerous medication meant to induce abortion that is harmful to women while being incredibly profitable for drug manufacturers. He is responsible for neither Thurman’s death nor Miller’s death. He is also not to blame for incompetent medical staffers who, when clearly legally allowed to treat a woman with severe sepsis, delay life-saving care. If anything, the lies perpetrated by the Democratic Party and its current star player, Harris, are to blame. These lies tell women they need abortion to be successful or happy. They also deceive women and men alike into thinking abortion bans kill women when, in fact, the abortion industry is the true culprit.   

Women deserve far better than a woman who is masquerading as a champion for females while deliberately doing the opposite. Harris is feverishly working to convince the people that abortion is both necessary and in danger of disappearing. It is a major part of her brand. Harris believes being a loud defender of the intentional killing of the unborn in the womb somehow makes her the moral choice in this election. That in itself is more than enough for voters of all political stripes to reject the Harris-Walz ticket and its easily disproven and cavernous cache of lies.

Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a contributing freelance columnist at the Freemen News-Letter. She is a mother of two and lives in the southern United States.