It’s been a little over two years since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion guaranteed by the 50 year precedent of Roe v. Wade. As a result, abortion regulations reverted back to the states to control, leaving more than 25 million women and more trans and non-binary people living in states that now have abortion bans or restrictions. In July 2022 in Georgia, abortion care became illegal after about six weeks into pregnancy — long before many people even realize they’re pregnant.
According to an extensive investigation from ProPublica, the law may have proved fatal for 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, who died from complications from a medication abortion after she couldn’t access abortion care in her home state of Georgia. ProPublica reports that the state’s maternal mortality review committee found that her death was preventable and said a delay in care had a “large” impact. These committees exist in each state but, ProPublica reports, typically operate on a years-long lag, and don’t release their findings. ProPublica obtained findings about two cases in which the committee ruled a death to be preventable, and that experts told the outlet were likely caused by an abortion ban.
Thurman, the mother of a six-year-old-son, had already attempted to obtain a surgical abortion in North Carolina, planning to drive four hours with a friend to the clinic. Hitting traffic, Thurman missed her appointment. Because so many women from out of state also now faced restrictive new laws, the clinic was reportedly booked that day, and could not reschedule.
Because her pregnancy was still within the time limit to use medication abortion, ProPublica reports the clinic offered her the abortion pill, which are regarded as overwhelmingly safe and effective. She received counseling and instructions from the clinic that prescribed the medication. Although an extremely rare occurrence, Thurman reportedly experienced complications that led to an infection. She entered a nearby hospital where medical examinations indicated she was experiencing an incomplete abortion, according to the report, which would require further medical intervention.
According to ProPublica, doctors initially declined to give her a D&C (dilation and curettage), a routine and safe procedure for both abortions and miscarriages, to completely expel remaining fetal tissue. When she was finally taken to the operating theater, about 20 hours later, her condition had deteriorated so severely that doctors began to perform a hysterectomy after performing a D&C. Thurman died on the operating table.
This week, ProPublica also shared a report on the death of Candi Miller, another woman seeking abortion care in Georgia. Maternal health experts who reviewed the case for the state committee also deemed her death preventable. Several of those experts, speaking to ProPublica anonymously, said it was a result of Georgia’s abortion ban.
Despite the state commission’s determination that Thurman’s death was preventable, the Trump campaign has already argued that nothing in Georgia’s law stopped the D&C from happening earlier. “President Trump has always supported exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which Georgia’s law provides,” Trump’s campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement to the AP. “With those exceptions in place, it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect Amber Thurman’s life.” The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a document which Democrats describe as a guide for Trump’s potential second term, calls for extra regulations of abortion pills — eventually, Project 2025 calls for the FDA to revoke its approval of these medications altogether.
“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement about Thurman’s death. “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
In a online rally hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Harris days after ProPublica’s report was published, Shanette Thurman, Amber’s mother, together with her other two daughters, spoke out publicly about her daughter's death for the first time. "People around the world need to know that this was preventable. Two years later, after speaking with my daughters because I lost strength," Shanette Thurman said. "I lost hope. You're looking at a mother that is broken. The worst pain ever that a mother, that a parent could ever feel. You're looking at it."
"It's heartbreaking. That was my baby sister, I'm beyond hurt, disappointed, I feel guilty, I wish I could have helped and we had no idea we trusted her to take care of her and they just let her die because of some stupid abortion ban, that treated her like she was just another number," Amber’s sister, CJ, said.
It’s no surprise that people are dying because of abortion bans. Before Roe was overturned, advocates warned that abortion bans can prove deadly — something we know from the states that had already attempted to ban abortion before Roe’s downfall empowered more. This accounts for many factors, including people attempting unsafe illegal abortions, to the extremely rare complication that Thurman experienced. While many decry the increase in self managed abortions after Roe was overturned, research show they are not inherently unsafe.
When using the abortion pill for a self-managed abortion, research has found that 97.7% of people did not need any follow up care, and 99.8% of people did not experience any adverse effects. Because of the “growing use of safe and effective medications, including mifepristone used together with misoprostol and misoprostol used alone,” one study found about the drugs that make up the abortion pill, “use of traumatic and dangerous methods is rare.” As ProPublica reports, of the nearly 6 million U.S. women who have taken mifepristone since 2000, there have been only 32 deaths reported to the FDA as of 2022, regardless of whether the drug was the reason for that death.
Many women, though, have been denied care in crisis because of abortion bans. An Associated Press report found that pregnant women in crisis being turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, leaving them to miscarry in public bathrooms, wait for treatment in their cars, or told by doctors to seek care elsewhere. Their investigation also found that women have developed infections or lost part of their reproductive system after hospitals in abortion-ban states delayed emergency abortions.
At this year’s Democratic National Convention, Amanda Zurawski took the stage to share her story of miscarrying at 18 weeks. Because of the new abortion restriction laws in Texas, she says doctors delayed administering care, resulting in her future fertility being put at risk. Many more women have shared their stories on TikTok, after former Trump White House personnel chief John McEntee cast doubt that women were “bleeding out” because of abortion bans.
In November, the right to abortion will be before people in nine states, who will vote on proposed constitutional amendments or other measures to protect or restore abortion rights.
