I knew media bias runs rampant across our nation, but it runs equally as biased in my home state of South Dakota. South Dakota Searchlight published a recent hit piece by business reporter Makenzie Huber titled, “Physicians feel ‘trapped’ by SD’s abortion trigger law. They’re hoping to change it.”
As you can imagine, she pushed the left’s abortion narrative, taking cheap shots at pro-life policies and being dishonest about key facts. I wrote a rebuttal to her skewed piece expecting this small-town paper, a publication that prides itself on “accuracy” and “fairness,” to run it, but it refused and so did two other South Dakota publications.
This reporter started out her story (published above the fold) with a South Dakota family physician, Dr. Laura Hoefert, as her marionette, recounting Hoefert feeling “trapped” by South Dakota’s abortion trigger law. Hoefert wasn’t sure if her third miscarriage was an ectopic pregnancy (when a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, usually in the fallopian tube). That ended up not being the case, but with South Dakota’s trigger law in full effect after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, reporter Huber asks her readers the question, “Who would help her?”
As a former abortionist and having over 30 years of experience delivering babies, I can tell you Huber got this piece all wrong. It is more opinion than reporting. Publications like The New York Times, Washington Post, and Harvard Gazette tout the myth that mothers are no longer protected in a post-Roe world and that states’ trigger laws will not allow doctors to help women with ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. This is a blatant lie.
Treating ectopic pregnancies is not the same thing as getting an abortion; even Planned Parenthood admitted as much on its website. Ectopic pregnancies threaten the life of a mother, and it’s extremely rare that babies survive these pregnancies.
Huber reached out to me while writing her article and asked me about ectopic pregnancies, among many other medical questions relating to the protection of the mother. I clearly explained that abortion in South Dakota law refers to the elective termination of an unborn human life, for no other reason than the mother’s choice. This does not refer to the premature separation of the preborn life due to any life-threatening medical condition of the mother. But of course, she disregarded these facts and published her slanted piece anyway.
Another falsehood pushed by the media is that pregnant women who have “cancer, epilepsy, kidney disease, or another chronic illness” (which Huber covered as well) cannot be helped. Not all chronic illnesses are life-threatening, but when they are, doctors like me treat each unique scenario first and foremost to protect the mother. As medical professionals, we don’t take life-altering decisions lightly. In South Dakota, our trigger law is clear: Doctors must use their best “judgment” in deciding what is the best medical route for safeguarding the life of the mother. This is not a disputable point.
I sent Huber two articles from the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, listing many of these life-threatening medical conditions that would necessitate an early baby delivery. It is misleading and an outright lie to confuse these two very different situations. No doctor in South Dakota or any pro-life state needs to fear a felony when it comes to saving the life of the mother. But again, reporters choose to turn a blind eye.
Having worked at Planned Parenthood, I know this game and I’ve seen time and again how the abortion lobby plays into it. In addition, they’ve been disparaging our South Dakota pregnancy resource centers. In fact, more than 80 pregnancy centers across the nation have been vandalized, with a number of those firebombed. Don’t believe the media lies and accusations of pregnancy center workers coercing and manipulating women, when in fact, it’s pure projection.
Corporate media are not our friends. They rarely portray the truth and are hardly interested in publishing the other side of the story. Don’t believe their lies about mothers not being protected — the life of the mother will always be a doctor’s first priority.
Dr. Patti Giebink is a former abortion doctor, MD, Author of “Unexpected Choice,” an abortion doctor’s journey to pro-life, and a South Dakota native.
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