When victims of abortion complications like Amber Thurman die in pro-life states, abortion activists, Democrats, and corporate media exploit their suffering to draw ire towards policies designed to protect women and babies in the womb. When a Colorado teenager died in 2025 of complications that a newly unredacted autopsy confirmed were directly linked to a late-term abortion completed by Planned Parenthood, the same people who purported to be champions of women’s health during the 2024 election cycle were suddenly radio silent.
Colorado permits abortion at any point in pregnancy and maintains some of the laxest public health and safety standards for facilities known to perform late-term abortions. So when 18-year-old Alexis Lynn Arguello entered a Fort Collins, Colorado Planned Parenthood in February 2025 requesting an abortion at nearly 22 weeks pregnant, no one batted an eye.
Instead, Planned Parenthood abortionists proceeded with a dilation and evacuation abortion, which involves dismembering a baby in utero limb by limb and then suctioning the remaining fluid and body parts from the mother’s womb. It was during this late-term abortion, which is known to carry a “higher incidence of complications compared to earlier abortions,” that Arguello suffered a life-threatening complication that led to severe bleeding.
A newly unredacted version of the autopsy confirmed what pro-lifers had already reported for more than a year: Arguello “died of complications of surgical pregnancy termination, including disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).”
“Probable amniotic fluid embolism, refractory shock, and multiorgan failure are significant contributing conditions,” the coroner noted.
Instead of acting immediately, Planned Parenthood allegedly delayed getting Arguello the lifesaving care required to adequately treat an amniotic fluid embolism. When an ambulance finally arrived to transfer the teen to the hospital, Planned Parenthood reportedly requested the emergency responders turn off their sirens to keep the abortion facility from receiving unwanted attention.
Arguello eventually received a blood transfusion, but it was too late. The teen, a “bright student” who had a “thirst for life,” died due to complications of her second trimester abortion.
Despite the dire circumstances of her passing, Arguello was not afforded a media uproar. Instead, the Larimer County Coroner Stephen Hanks schemed to keep the details of her death quiet.
For months, the Kansas-based pro-life group Operation Rescue fought to obtain an unredacted version of Arguello’s autopsy report and draw attention to her story. Hanks refused on the grounds of “Colorado’s strong public policy in favor of protecting reproductive healthcare” and claimed the release of such information would harm the public.
“Further, Mr. Hanks testified that allowing the release of reproductive healthcare information in an autopsy report might discourage someone from seeking reproductive healthcare during their life,” legal documents describe. “He testified generally to these propositions — Mr. Hanks did not provide any specific examples or data. Nor did Mr. Hanks provide any evidence, even anecdotal, that people skipped reproductive healthcare based on the possibility that those records might be disclosed after their death.”
It took an April 2026 order from Daniel M. St. John II of the 8th Judicial District Court for Hanks to hand over his analysis explaining the reasons Arguello died. By then, Colorado had likely recorded thousands more risky abortions.
One month after Arguello’s death, witnesses testified to Colorado’s Democrat-controlled legislature in favor of passing a bill that would require the state to “annually license and to establish and enforce standards” on facilities that perform late-term abortions.
“The abortion industry wants to legitimize itself as a form of women’s health care, but they don’t want regulations or accountability. I would consider that ‘back-alley’,” Dr. Keri Kasun warned.
The Colorado legislature ultimately rejected the bill.
Contrary to the cries of the ruling class, the real threat to women’s health doesn’t come states that limit or outlaw abortion, but from states that refuse to regulate an industry known to botch abortions, dispense castrating drugs to confused minors, reportedly traffic baby body parts, enable abusers, allegedly perform unlicensed procedures, and violate health and safety standards.
Americans are not fond of abortion beyond 15 weeks gestation. Yet, corporate media willingly advance Democrats’ abortion extremism with fake fact checks asserting late-term abortion “doesn’t exist” and is not a “real thing.” The result of that activism and Democrats’ extremism is the deaths of tens of thousands of babies and some women like Arguello.
