JD Vance Slams Leftists For Trying To ‘Capitalize’ On ‘Political Lies’ Surrounding Miscarriages

WASHINGTON—Vice President JD Vance weighed in Monday on those who use “heartbreaking” stories of miscarriage to fear-monger women into supporting a pro-abortion agenda.

The vice president shared an X thread from a woman who revealed that she miscarried her baby while living in Texas, where pro-abortion activists have falsely argued that women will be jailed or prosecuted if they miscarry a baby due to the state’s pro-life laws.

“I live in Texas,” wrote the woman, who identified herself on X as “Sky.” “I’ve lost a child. The miscarriage lies they tell you are bull.”

She explained: “In February of 2023 I found out that my baby didn’t have a heartbeat. When my hysterical sobs subsided in the sonogram room, my OBGYN kindly (and with much grace) gave me my options: I could let nature take its course, I could jump-start the process with medication, or I could opt for a D&C. At no point was I blamed or questioned. It wasn’t my fault.”

“I was a grieving mother… I am still a grieving mother… who lost her child,” Sky wrote. “The medical system and the people within it, did what they could for me throughout the entire process. My story is not an outlier. It’s the norm. We do not live in a dystopian novel. Shit happens. Awful shit happens. But don’t you DARE scare women who are out there just trying to build a family for your own political gain. Monsters. Every one of you who push this narrative that women will be imprisoned for a miscarriage.”

The vice president quoted the post, calling it a “very heartbreaking testimony.”

“Losing a baby is terrible and heartbreaking, especially for the mom, and we shouldn’t use political lies to capitalize on that,” the vice president wrote.

Vance’s attention to the issue is notable, particularly given how politically problematic abortion has become for Republicans. Trump, who helmed the most pro-life administration in United States history and continues to support the pro-life cause, notably does not currently discuss abortion except to note that Democrats support a radical abortion vision that allows for abortions until birth.

Particularly during the 2024 election, as Democrats sought to portray Vance and President Donald Trump as extremists on abortion. Abortion advocates hyped the notion that pro-life laws endangered women. One of these heavily promoted false notions suggested that women who miscarried their babies would be targeted by local officials, akin to something out of a dystopian novel such as “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

As the 2024 election came to a head, multiple outlets published viral stories seeking to suggest that a Trump presidency would imperil women.

One such story was that of Amari Marsh, a then-22-year-old woman who gave birth to a living baby girl on March 1, 2023, according to police reports obtained by The Daily Wire. Marsh’s story, written by KFF Health News and republished on CNN, was complicated, upsetting, and missing details. What was apparent, however, was the narrative that KFF’s story pushed: that an innocent woman faced jail time for a miscarriage. 

According to the police reports obtained by The Daily Wire, police said that Marsh told them she gave birth to her baby in the toilet after visiting Planned Parenthood to obtain abortion drugs. Though officers repeatedly tried to get her to remove the baby from the toilet while speaking to her on the phone, she did not. When the officers arrived on the scene, they found Marsh’s baby still alive, but covered in toilet paper, lying in the toilet water. The officers “began life saving measures” while transporting the baby to RMC (Regional Medical Center of Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties), where the baby was ultimately pronounced dead.

An arrest warrant obtained by The Daily Wire, dated May 2, 2023, states that Marsh waited 10 minutes to call 911 after her baby was born alive (Marsh alleged to KFF that she was freaking out and said, “I couldn’t even keep myself together”). It also states that she would not remove her baby from the toilet even when officers told her to.

“She refused to remove the baby from the water in the toilet at the urging of the dispatcher, which was ultimately a proximate cause of her daughter’s death,” the arrest warrant states. “The cause of death was ruled respiratory complications due to prematurity due to preterm premature rupture of membranes with chorioamnionitis due to maternal chlamydia infection. These are treatable diagnoses in a NICU.” 

She was charged with murder/homicide by child abuse. A South Carolina grand jury declined in August to indict her.

Pro-abortion activist Laura Klime Coates embraces her daughter, Charlize, 9, as they pose outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2024. (Photo by Shuran Huang for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In the incident report, dated March 1, 2023, Marsh allegedly told officers that she knew she was pregnant in November 2022, made an appointment with Planned Parenthood two months later, intending to “take the Plan-C pill, which would possibly cause an abortion to occur.” She also said she “was supposed to have a follow-up appointment to make sure the pill worked but never went back.”

In October 2024, she would claim that she didn’t even know she was pregnant at the time of her baby’s birth. 

But she told police in March that on February 28, 2023, she began experiencing abdominal pain and went to the hospital, where she was told “she was pregnant and a heartbeat was located.” Marsh told officers that “the energy in the room was off” and she felt uncomfortable, so she went home, where she gave birth to her baby in the toilet. She told officers that she did not take her child out of the toilet because “she did not know what to do.”

KFF’s story paints a different picture. It refers to the baby only as a “pregnancy loss,” never mentions that the baby was likely around 20 weeks old, and suggests that Marsh’s case raises “questions about the state of reproductive rights in this country, disparities in health care, and pregnancy criminalization, especially for Black women like Marsh,” specifically noting that Marsh’s case “highlights what’s at stake in November.” 

The story also says that Marsh denied to KFF that she went to Planned Parenthood or took abortion drugs (though the police report says she told them she went to Planned Parenthood in January 2023). KFF also argues that the police report “doesn’t specify whether she took — or even obtained — the drug,” and the publication does not mention Marsh’s assertion to police that “she was supposed to have a follow-up appointment to make sure the pill worked but never went back.” 

The publication did not respond to requests for comment.