Fox News and broadcast news programs all neglected to cover the death of two young women in Georgia resulting from the state's six week abortion ban, failing to inform their viewers of the deadly consequences of the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As ProPublica first reported, at least two women have died in Georgia in part due to restrictive state laws stemming from the state's six-week abortion ban. As Kavitha Surana detailed in her reporting from September 16, Amber Nicole Thurman died after a Piedmont area hospital declined to provide a “dilation and curettage” procedure to remove fetal tissue after taking an abortion pill. Two days later, ProPublica reported on the death of Candi Miller, who also tragically died after deciding not to seek abortion care in a hospital due to Georgia's ban. ProPublica detailed how OB-GYNs and other medical providers have found it difficult to interpret the conflicting language in abortion bans across the country, and how they have feared prison time for providing life-saving procedures that might go against these laws. A Georgia medical committee has ruled both the deaths of Thurman and Miller “preventable” and pointed to Georgia's ban as being at least partially responsible for the womens’ deaths.

Fox News failed to report on the deaths stemming from the Georgia abortion ban, dedicating zero coverage to the story from September 16, when the story was published, through 11 E.T. on September 19. Fox News’ silence comes as no surprise — the network has downplayed the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision and repeatedly misled its viewers about the risk that abortion bans posed. 

CNN and MSNBC both dedicated significant coverage to the story, with CNN spending 36 minutes over 7 segments on the story, while MSNBC spent 1 hour and 15 minutes over 14 segments on the story. On Katy Tur Reports, Center for Reproductive Rights President & CEO Nancy Northup described how Thurman’s death was preventable and a consequence of healthcare being "criminalized' under state abortion bans.

National broadcast shows ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight, CBS’ Mornings and Evening News, and NBC’s Today and Nightly News also failed to cover the story.

National TV media have a responsibility to inform viewers of the fatal consequences of state abortion bans and how they are a direct result of the Trump-appointed Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe V. Wade.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight, CBS’ Mornings and Evening News, and NBC’s Today and Nightly News as well as all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “ProPublica,” “Pro Publica,” “Georgia,” “Piedmont,” “Miller,” or “Thurman” within close proximity of any of the terms “abortion,” “six weeks,” “6 weeks,” “mifepristone,” or “misoprostol” from September 16, 2024, when ProPublica published its story detailing the maternal mortality of Georgia's six-week abortion ban, through 11 a.m. E.T. September 19, 2024. 

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the maternal mortality of Georgia's six-week abortion ban was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of maternal mortality as a consequence of Georgia's abortion law. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the consequences of the ban with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the consequences of the ban without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the consequences of the ban scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.