Electioneering: CBS, Abortion Hacks Partner for Case of Family Saying Paxton Killed Woman

Wednesday, CBS Mornings had a galling, eight-and-a-half-minute-long report that could only be described as electioneering for Democrat James Talarico against Republican Ken Paxton, partnering with two undisclosed abortion activists — who insist they’re not playing “politics” — to showcase the claims of one family who insists Paxton “killed” their family member because she couldn’t get an abortion.

If they had done a modicum of research instead of relying on the all-too-convenient timing of the family’s lawsuit, they’d do more than footnote Tierra Walker’s plethora of other health conditions that, put together, illustrate a far more complicated picture than their assertion an abortion would have solved everything.

The teases were appalling, starting with co-host Gayle King sharing before the show’s “Eye Opener” that they’d be covering “a Texas family tell[ing] a heartbreaking story about a woman who died after allegedly being denied an abortion.”

Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers read the tease in the “Eye Opener”: “A woman’s family is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and state officials, blaming strict abortion limits for her death.”

Duthiers had the final, loaded tease 20 minutes into the show:

Coming up, Ken Paxton and other Texas officials are the target of a new lawsuit that blames them and doctors for a woman’s death. It’s putting women’s health and the state’s strict abortion limits back into the spotlight ahead of the midterms. Jericka Duncan talks to the woman’s aunt, who says the doctor treating her niece should be locked up.

King’s lead-in to Weekend News anchor Jericka Duncan’s report fretted, “there is an unprecedented legal battle taking place in the state of Texas over the state’s very restrictive abortion laws.”

It just so happened to be placing the blame squarely on Paxton and only gently said Walker’s “family says...she was denied an abortion” and “blame her death on what they call a culture of fear over abortion laws.”

Duncan came off like a Planned Parenthood communications executive, tugging at the heartstrings of clueless viewers and Texas voters (click “expand”):

DUNCAN: This is a unique case that puts those strict laws back in the spotlight. The family of Tierra Walker is trying to hold all parties responsible for her death, but I met with her family on Monday, her husband, her son, and her mother were too distraught to speak. But we were able to speak to her aunt, who often accompanied Tierra to the hospital. She explained why she believes this death was preventable.

WALKER: Tierra was the light. She was everything.

DUNCAN: Latanya Walker says her niece, Tierra, should still be alive.

WALKER: They mistreated her so bad in the hospital.

Duncan raced through Walker’s health conditions, speeding past the fact that she “reported having seizures, nausea, and severe pain” and spent “nearly half” “[o]f the 103 days she knew was pregnant” in the hospital that led to pre-eclampsia, as well as pre-existing conditions such as “blood clots and high blood pressure.”

Walker’s aunt Latanya said the hospital’s doctors and nurses “already know what they’re supposed to do and they don’t do nothing” and “didn’t care at all” even though “I’m arguing, I’m fussing, I’m cussing.”

LifeNews.com’s Steven Ertelt had additional information about Walker that Duncan conveniently ignored:

An autopsy found hypertensive cardiovascular disease: her heart enlarged and failed, with kidney damage and fluid buildup. She had chronic hypertension, diabetes and obesity, a history of stillbirth from severe preeclampsia, seizures, and a life-threatening blood clot that required emergency surgery.

It all built up to Walker being inexplicably discharged with pre-eclampsia and her death days later when “her son found her unresponsive on his 15th birthday.”

Instead of sitting with the remarkable and alleged negligence by the hospital, Duncan turned the focus to two attorneys, Molly Duane and Michelle Maloney.

Duncan omitted the fact that Duane previously worked for the far-left Center for Reproductive Rights, represented other women and their families in media-driven stories about the various state abortion “bans,” and was named to the 2024 edition of Time 100 Next for her activism. That would be akin to interviewing an attorney with our friends at, say, America First Policy Institute or the Heritage Foundation and insisting they are not political.

In Maloney’s case, this personal injury attorney also has been in headlines, appearing in a ProPublica piece last week (cross-posted at CNN.com) concerning other women in states with so-called “bans.”

Of course, they gave Duncan what she wanted in terms of blaming Walker’s death on Paxton and “the immense culture of fear...created in the State of Texas” (click “expand”):

DUNCAN: CBS News reviewed thousands of pages of Tierra’s medical records, and there are no references to ending the pregnancy.

DUANE: No one has viewed more post-Roe medical records than Michelle and I. They never say the word abortion. They’re scared to even write the word in the medical chart.

DUNCAN [TO DUANE]: So you think that’s on purpose?

DUANE: Oh, absolutely.

DUNCAN: Attorneys Michelle Maloney and Molly Duane represent the Walker family in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. They’re suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the head of the Texas medical board, some of Tierra’s doctors, and others. [TO MALONEY] Why do you think Tierra Walker is dead?

MALONEY: Tierra is dead because not one of her health care providers would give her the one medical procedure that would have saved her life, and they would not do that because of the immense culture of fear that has been created in the state of Texas.

DUNCAN [TO MALONEY]: How do you know what these doctors were thinking?

MALONEY: The only reason that you would not give her an abortion is if you wanted her to die, which I don’t think was the case, or if you were scared of the law.

Duncan interjected with her own fingers on the scales against Paxton: “In Texas, abortions are banned with few exceptions if the mother’s life is at risk. However, doctors could lose their medical licenses, face fines, and risk up to 99 years behind bars if they violate state law.”

Noting his race against Talarico, Duncan played a clip of Duane insisting she and Maloney are “not concerned with politics,” but rather “seeking justice for a family that is grieving.”

Duncan asked them if either had “spoken to anyone from Talarico’s campaign,” but of course they both said no.

Instead of considering the lockstep nature of political campaigns and that interest groups would engage in independent work to then benefit a preferred candidate, Duncan moved on after speculating to them that “Paxton might say, as the Texas attorney general, his job is to enforce the law, and that this ban is the law.”

Maloney doubled down, declaring he’s the main target “because he went above and beyond in enforcing the law to create a culture of fear that was so pervasive that doctors refused to even provide legally permissive care.”

Following a chat with a sympathetic ob/gyn, she closed with Walker’s aunt, who said Paxton should“go to hell” because he “killed my niece” and the medical professionals who treated her late niece “should be locked up.”

Only then did she mention her team reached out to the defendants in the case and read half sentences from statements attributed to University of Texas Health and the state medical board.

King was taken, hook, line, and sinker: “[I]f you’re the family hearing that, it just sounds like white noise to you because your loved one is gone. And it’s so heartbreaking to me. There seem to be so many things that could have prevented her death, starting with, why was she released from the hospital with pre-eclampsia?”

Along with more King laments, Duthiers asked a follow-up that accepted the abortion framing (click “expand”):

DUTHIERS: Well, so, the physicians, it sounds like, did have legal authority to intervene. The Texas medical board told you the person does not have to be on the verge of death for them to intervene medically, and that could mean if somebody is potentially in a life — situation where they may lose their life, you can provide that care, including an abortion.

DUNCAN: But as you heard from that Texas doctor that was not connected to this case, there is, according to her and other doctors, this element of fear. It’s your livelihood, your medical license, it’s a potential fine if you’re seen as aiding and abetting. But consider this. In Texas since that inaction of the abortion bans, there were about 50,000 abortions in the state of Texas before the bans took effect, and now there are about 85 each year.

BURLESON: Ooooo.

KING: You know, when I think of her son finding his mother unresponsive —

BURLESON: Oh man, Gayle.

KING: — and dying on his 15th birthday —

BURLESON: Oh, man, heartbreaking.

KING: — it’s heartbreaking but also maddening.

BURLESON: Yeah, especially when you hear the words —

KING: Also maddening.

BURLESON: — preventable.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from September 16, click here.