ProPublica Wins Pulitzer For Misleading News About Abortion Laws

ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for its “Life of the Mother” series, which erroneously implied that a Georgia woman who died after taking an abortion pill died because of the state’s abortion laws.

ProPublica’s story on Amber Thurman, the 28-year-old woman who died after Georgia doctors waited 20 hours to perform necessary medical care on her, heavily implied the doctors waited so long because of the state’s abortion laws.

“At least two women in Georgia died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state, ProPublica has found. This is one of their stories,” the nonprofit wrote in the introduction for its article on the subject.

Thurman missed an appointment for a surgical abortion in North Carolina, so an employee at the clinic prescribed her a chemical abortion consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol, according to ProPublica.

1. An abortion pill kills Amber Nicole Thurman

2. ProPublica blames her death on state abortion laws instead

3. ProPublica wins a Pulitzer for lying pic.twitter.com/Nl6Wr6vkjE

— John Hasson (@SonofHas) May 5, 2025

Days later, Thurman’s boyfriend called her an ambulance after she started vomiting blood. An obstetrician (OB) at the Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, diagnosed her with acute severe sepsis, the nonprofit reported.

Thurman died around 20 hours after the hospital first admitted her. A maternal mortality review committee concluded that there was a “good chance” her death could have been prevented if doctors had performed a dilation and curettage (D&C) operation sooner, ProPublica learned. (RELATED: 1 In 10 Women Experience ‘Serious Adverse Event’ After Taking Abortion Pill, Study Says)

ProPublica incorrectly labelled the procedure as illegal, implying that was the reason doctors did not perform it.

“Instead of performing the newly criminalized procedure, they continued to gather information and dispense medicine,” the nonprofit wrote.

A separate story in ProPublica’s “Life of the Mother” series acknowledged that the twins in her uterus were already dead.

“Medically speaking, Thurman’s pregnancy had already ended. But the state’s abortion ban had criminalized performing a D&C and threatened doctors with up to 10 years in prison if prosecutors decided they violated it,” the outlet wrote.

Georgia’s abortion ban, through The Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, does not criminalize performing D&C’s, a procedure ProPublica’s own article admitted was part of standard miscarriage care.

The LIFE Act, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, allows for exceptions in cases of rape, incest and medical emergency. It also does not ban any procedures on a fetus that is “medically futile.”

“‘Medically futile’ means that, in reasonable medical judgment, an unborn child has a profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth,” the bill text reads.

D&C’s are common procedures doctors use to remove fetal tissues after both abortions and miscarriages and the procedure can also be used diagnostically, according to Johns Hopkins.

While ProPublica speculated that the Piedmont Henry doctors may have feared that Thurman’s consumption of abortion pills could have caused them to hesitate, the outlet did not report that any doctor actually said that.

The outlet confirmed that “no doctor has been prosecuted for violating abortion bans.”

A key element of the tragic case, which ProPublica, National Review, and others seem to agree on, is that doctors waited too long to perform the D&C.

“From the moment she entered the hospital, Thurman exhibited signs of an acute internal infection — and yet, doctors allowed her to languish for 20 hours until they began operating. By then, it was too late,” National Review’s Kayla Bartsch wrote.

Exactly why the doctors waited so long is still unknown. ProPublica, which won the Pulitzer for reporting on the story, was unable to find the answer.

“Doctors and a nurse involved in Thurman’s care declined to explain their thinking and did not respond to questions from ProPublica. Communications staff from the hospital did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Georgia’s Department of Public Health, which oversees the state maternal mortality review committee, said it cannot comment on ProPublica’s reporting because the committee’s cases are confidential and protected by federal law,” the nonprofit wrote.

The absence of verifiable facts did not stop the nonprofit from heavily implying that abortion laws killed Thurman, as well as other women.

“Doctors warned state legislators women would die if medical procedures sometimes needed to save lives became illegal,” ProPublica’s story reads.

ProPublica wrote that deaths from abortion pills are rare. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cautions consumers that at least four percent of people who take Mifeprex could end up suffering serious complications.

Approximately one in 25 women who take oral Mifeprex, a brand name version of mifepristone, will end up in the emergency room, according to the FDA.

That likelihood increases the longer a woman is pregnant. Almost 40 percent of women who take abortion pills after 84 days of gestation will need follow-up surgery and four percent will incur significant infection, according to the FDA.

When the FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000 it said women should not take it after a gestation period of seven weeks. Under the Obama administration in 2016, the administration moved that window to 10 weeks. Thurman was nine weeks pregnant when she ingested the pill.