‘Preventable’ death of black mother after complications first linked to abortion ban

A Black mother died in Georgia after a strict state law banning abortion caused an almost 24-hour delay in her care.

In August 2022, 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman went to a North Carolina clinic to have an abortion, People Magazine reportedShe couldn’t get the procedure in Georgia, where she lived, because she was six weeks pregnant — and after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the state banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The clinic gave her the pregnancy-terminating pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, which she took home to Georgia. A number of days later, Thurman developed a rare complication during which she didn’t expel all of the fetal tissue, according to ProPublicathe editorial office that first reported on her case.

Thurman, a medical assistant and mother of a 6-year-old boy, began experiencing heavy bleeding and pain before she eventually collapsed at home. Her boyfriend called an ambulance and she or he was taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge. The remaining tissue caused her to develop a highly dangerous infection often called sepsis.

However, due to Georgia’s anti-abortion laws, doctors didn’t perform a D&C (dilation and curettage). Despite losing consciousness within the hospital room and rapidly deteriorating, she didn’t receive treatment for nearly 24 hours.

ProPublica reports that an official state commission found that doctors waited 20 hours before the surgery while monitoring Thurman’s infection status — during which era her blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels and her organs shut down.

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After her death, a state investigation concluded it was “preventable” — and ProPublica said Thurman’s case is the first known “preventable” case involving an abortion.

The publication notes that it should likely take one other two years to fully understand the impact of Roe v. Wade’s defeat, as many hospitals have a two-year delay in reporting the cause of patient deaths. But it’s not surprising that the first public story is a few black woman. The maternal health crisis continues to disproportionately affect black moms.

What happened to Thurman isn’t only one of the risks of abortion. It may occur in cases of miscarriage, vaginal delivery or cesarean section, according to Mayo ClinicWhen many warned that overturning Roe v. Wade and letting states resolve could have negative impacts on women’s health overall, this is strictly what many feared.

“We actually have proven evidence of something we already knew — that abortion bans kill people,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All. Mother Jones on Thurman’s case. “This can’t go on.”

Meanwhile in Georgia, Dr. Krystal “KR” RedmanSPARK co-founder, told the outlet: “Amber’s case is just one example of the ongoing systemic neglect that continues to claim the lives of Black people.”

Redman added: “Reproductive justice is not just about access to abortion, but also about the broader right to high-quality, comprehensive, full-spectrum, culturally modest, life-saving health care for all of us.”