--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- Georgia Howe: The NFL is back, and FanDuel's got everything you need to play your game. From same-game parlays to live betting. Right now, new customers bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. 21-plus in president select states. 18-plus in Kentucky and Wyoming. Must be first online real money waging. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more serious tone]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Many women on the left are panicking about abortion in the wake of President Trump's resounding election victory. The media has spent months promoting misleading stories, creating panic and spawning online conspiracies. In this episode, we take a close look at the cases that have caused the most concern. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley.
--:-- John Bickley: It's November 17th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, guys. Producer Brandon here. I have to tell you about a game-changing product I used before a night out with drinks. It's called Pre-Alcohol. Z-Biotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. Just make it your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly, and tomorrow, well, you'll be all right. I made use of pre-alcohol last Friday night right before my first vodka martini and woke up unshaken or stirred. Head over to zbiotics.com slash wire to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use code wire at checkout. Zbiotics is backed by a 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. So head over to zbiotics.com slash wire and use the code wire at checkout for 15% off.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Joining us now to discuss abortion ban misinformation is Daily Wire investigative reporter Mairead Alordi. So, Mairead, we're seeing a lot of abortion panic in the wake of this election. Hi, Georgia.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Yes, just a quick scroll through social media will turn up tons of posts from scared and angry women. Most of the fears revolve around women thinking they will be denied life-saving care during pregnancy complications. But their fears are actually misplaced on two levels. One, Trump is not planning on signing a national abortion ban, as many of these women seem to believe. And two, these viral stories about women dying because of state abortion bans are dubious at best.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Nevertheless, the reaction from women has been intense, and it's actually spilled over into attacking men and even some delusional and paranoid theories that we'll get to in a second. So first off, there have been a few really tragic deaths that have been blamed on some of these state laws. How much of that is the truth and how much of that is spin?
--:-- Mairead Alordi: That's right. So far, there are no deaths that can clearly be blamed on the bans. There are about four or five specific women whose deaths were related to abortion or maternity issues, but none are caused by a hospital being blocked from providing care. In fact, all look like hospital malpractice and or negligence.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So let's just debunk them one by one. Probably the most famous case is Amber Thurman. Here's a Kamala Harris ad that specifically talked about her case.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What happened to her was preventable. My daughter is gone because of what Donald Trump did. For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated and I did it. And I'm proud to have done it. It's nothing good enough to bring her back. Her life is over. 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. We will speak her name, Amber Nicole Thurman. I felt her compassion. We will never get Amber back, but we can make sure this never happens again. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Now, what is the truth about Amber Thurman? Amber Thurman took abortion pills and subsequently died of sepsis. Thurman, who was 28 and living in Georgia, was 10 weeks pregnant with twins when she traveled to North Carolina to obtain abortion pills. She took the pills and miscarried the babies, but later visited an ER after vomiting and passing out at home. It was determined that there was some retained tissue from the pregnancy still in her uterus, which can happen after miscarriage or abortion or even a successful birth. Unfortunately, doctors took 20 hours to perform the necessary dilation and curatage procedure, or DNC, to clear out her uterus. And during that time, she became severely septic. She ultimately died during her procedure.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Even the left-leaning outlets report that it's not clear from the records why doctors waited to provide a DNC. In other words, there's no indication that there were legal concerns as this is a routine procedure. The hospital has not yet made a statement about why they delayed care. The key here, though, is that Amber was not pregnant at the time she presented to the hospital, so she was not seeking an abortion. She was experiencing a known risk associated with the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol. Some activists will point to the fact that Thurman traveled out of state to obtain the abortion due to the six-week ban and that she had been seeking a surgical abortion, which she apparently did not get because she missed her appointment. But the same outcome could have easily occurred if she took the pills in her home state. A surgical abortion also carries a risk of retained tissue.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: In another case, a woman died at home after not seeking medical attention at all. Candy Miller in Georgia ordered abortion pills online because she didn't want to be pregnant while having lupus, diabetes, and hypertension. These can cause risks in pregnancy. She died after taking the abortion pills and lying in bed for days. She never sought medical attention. An autopsy found she, too, had failed to expel all fetal tissue, which, as we noted, can result in infection and sepsis. She also had a lethal combination of painkillers, including fentanyl, in her system. Her family claims she had been afraid to go to the doctor because of Georgia's abortion ban, but if she had gone, she could have been treated legally.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Sadly yes. There are two other cases which are a little more complicated but still appear to be hospital malpractice cases Two additional women in Texas died of sepsis while they were pregnant In one case a teen mom named Navaya Crane presented to the hospital with symptoms of strep throat and abdominal cramps She was not seeking an abortion. She just needed symptom relief. At that visit, the hospital diagnosed her with strep and gave her antibiotics but did not address the abdominal pain. Navaya then went to a second ER about the abdominal pain, and at that visit she showed symptoms of sepsis along with a urinary tract infection. But she was again sent home by a doctor who had missed infections in previous patients. She later returned a third time to that second hospital after she started bleeding. By this time Crane was very septic with extensive internal bleeding and she unfortunately passed away at the hospital.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: This was a particularly tragic situation because Crane's six-month unborn baby was actually old enough to potentially survive outside the womb had the hospital treated her promptly. All of this happened over the course of multiple days. Crane did not want an abortion, but she would have qualified for one due to the life or death nature of the situation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For the record, Crane and her family are pro-life and they blame her death on medical negligence, not the abortion law, and they say her death is being used for politics when the hospitals are to blame. I want them to be going after Baptist and St. Elizabeth because they're blamed for her death. I feel like they murdered my daughter and they just got away with it. Murdered my daughter and my grandbaby and got away with it.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: In the last case, a 28-year-old woman named Joseli Barnica in Texas died as a result of mismanaged miscarriage care. Barnica reportedly went to the hospital when she experienced signs of miscarriage at 17 weeks. Her husband said his wife had told him that the medical team said it would be a crime to give her an abortion. But Barnica was not seeking an abortion. She was actively miscarrying. The baby did have a heartbeat on arrival to the hospital, but eventually there were no fetal heart tones, and Barnica did pass the fetal remains in the hospital. She was discharged but kept bleeding and later became septic as a result of retained tissue. When she called the hospital, they dismissed her concerns about the bleeding, telling her it was normal. She returned to the hospital two days later, but at that point, she was extremely sick and ultimately died.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Would it have been legal for the hospital to perform an abortion in her case rather than allowing the miscarriage to progress without the intervention? Yes, abortion is legal in emergency situations in Texas, and that's up to the doctor's discretion. The Texas Health Department has also since clarified that future emergencies, for example, even just the threat of sepsis to an actively miscarrying woman, counts as threats to the life of the mother. So not only early delivery, but a full-on abortion would have been legal in this case.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: So now, we often hear about ectopic pregnancies as another sticking point. First off, can you explain to the audience what an ectopic pregnancy is and then what the legality is there?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Sure. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg or zygote implants outside the uterus, usually in the fallopian tube. This is an emergency because the zygote grows rapidly and will rupture the fallopian tube, which can cause internal bleeding. It's also important to note that these are not viable pregnancies. A baby cannot go to term in the wrong anatomic place except in very rare cases
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Ectopic pregnancies are a hot topic because they have to be terminated in order to prevent serious medical problems or death and some activists claim this type of life-saving care could be restricted under abortion laws. But the reality is every pro-life law on the books has exceptions for life of the mother, and ectopic pregnancy is a clear example of that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Dr. Ingrid Skopp, a board-certified OBGYN who has delivered thousands of babies and published research on maternal mortality, breaks this down. There is no reason a doctor like myself cannot treat pregnant women who experience a miscarriage or have life-threatening conditions like ectopic pregnancy, premature rupture of membranes, hypertensive emergencies, cancer, or a host of other conditions that can put a mother's life in danger. Treating pregnant women with these conditions by following the medical standards of care, even if it means ending the pregnancy, puts physicians in no legal danger whatsoever.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Now, we've also seen a lot of claims that the bans will have downstream effects. So, for example, OBGYNs leaving the states. Has that been happening?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yes, there have been reports of OBGYNs leaving states with abortion bans, yes. Although most OBGYNs, about 80%, don't perform abortions to begin with. It's true that every state allows abortion when it's medically necessary, but some of these doctors say they're concerned their decision will be second-guessed. It's worth noting that some of these pro-life laws have been in effect for two years now since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and still not a single doctor has been prosecuted for performing an abortion.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: On the same note, tens of thousands of miscarriages occur every year in these same states with pro-life laws. If the law was truly threatening care for them, we'd be hearing at least dozens of these stories every week, and that's not an exaggeration. It's telling that the only examples of deaths allegedly caused by these laws are the handful we've just discussed, and even these are dubious at best. And by the way, doctors in Texas, for example, have performed at least 113 abortions to save pregnant women's lives since Roe v. Wade is overturned in 2022. So many competent doctors are confident in making these decisions, despite the rumors you might hear on social media.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, speaking of fears and rumors spreading on social media, what are we seeing there?
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Well, most of the fears center around abortion. Just an example, in one Facebook group for women trying to conceive, women expressed fears about being denied life-saving care during miscarriages. We're also seeing women warning each other not to use period tracker apps anymore. They claim the government is going to monitor women's cycles. Other social media trends take aim at men. Since Trump won, some women have been calling on each other to embrace the 4B movement. This is a South Korean feminist movement that encourages women to refuse to have sex with men. Some women are even shaving their heads in protest. And another disturbing trend is the hashtag Aquatofana, which is a reference to wives poisoning their husbands. The anti-male sentiment was largely sparked by Trump's gains with Black men and Latino men as well as young men. And a lot of the extreme behavior is thanks to the avalanche of misinformation that was spread in the lead up to the election, often by the mainstream media. Well, and some extremely dishonest campaign language as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Maraid, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Thanks, Georgia.
