10mo ago

A Georgia woman has died after an abortion ban delayed lifesaving care

www.motherjones.com

Amber Nicole Thurman's death from an infection in 2022 is believed to be the first confirmed maternal fatality linked to post-Roe bans.

Reproductive justice advocates have been warning for more than two years that the end of Roe v. Wade would lead to surge in maternal mortality among patients denied abortion care---and that the increase was likely to be greatest among low-income women of color. Now, a new report by ProPublica has uncovered the first such verified death. A 28-year-old medical assistant and Black single mother in Georgia died from a severe infection after a hospital delayed a routine medical procedure that had been outlawed under that state's six-week abortion ban.

Amber Nicole Thurman's death, in August 2022, was officially deemed "preventable" by a state committee tasked with reviewing pregnancy-related deaths. Thurman's case is the first time a preventable abortion-related death has come to public attention since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, ProPublica's Kavitha Surana reported.

Now, “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, during a call with media. “It cannot go on.”

102 comments

'Pro-life' my ass
- It has never been "pro-life" or about saving the lives of "children". This has always been about controlling women.
  
  Most aren't aware, but this is the crux of the issue. Evangelicals do not value equity and presume others are ignorant/incorrect.
  
  Doubtless you have that. Off the top of my head, you should expect to find:
  Those who want to control women.
  Those who are uncomfortable with the control aspect but want to get elected.
  Pro choice people who want to get elected.
  A mix of comfort and discomfort with the ideas of pro choice and controlling women, but still want to get elected.
- Fascists don't just lie, they invert the truth precisely.
  Trickle-down economics, for example, was pitched as "a rising tide lifts all boats", when in reality trickle down economics is the exact opposite of that. A rising tide lifting all boats would be the poorest person getting money until they have as much money as the second poorest person, then those two getting money until they have as much money as the third poorest person, and so on. Lying, reality-inverting fascists got up on a stage--in front of people-- and said that process was the same as giving the people with the most money even more money.
  In a way it's brilliant, because it's so brazenly and bafflingly stupid that it acts like an EMP for logical thought. Which they know, and intentionally utilize. The most important skill a fascist has to have is the ability to make people stupid enough to vote for them. What better way than to go for the jugular and assault reality itself?
  With an incessant anti-reality static, courtesy of your fox newses and heritage foundations, reality offers no obstacle at all.
- Stop using “prolife” as a term.
  It frames their stance positively, call it what it is: “anti-choice”
  
  "Forced-breeders"
  
  Medical slavery enthusiasts.
  
  Pro-forced birth.
  
  Anti-rights
- They are pro-life, just not your life.
  
  No they are not pro life, and they should never be allowed to use that term or make that claim without protests.
  
  Seeing that they oppose school lunches, gun control and free healthcare, not your children's lives either.
  
  They are pro forced birth. They don't care about infants, children, or adults.
  
  If they were pro-life and consistent that lives are more important than human rights, they would also be clamoring for gun control on the basis of saving children's lives in schools. Or, fuck, universal healthcare is an easy one, higher taxes for the wealthy aren't even harming anyone's rights and it saves lives.
  But it is actually about controlling women with medical slavery and claims about saving lives are all lies they don't actually believe.
- I propose to stop using "pro-life" and "pro-choice". Instead use "pro-quantity" and "pro-quality".
- You're right it's not pro-lefe, it's really anti-choice.
A lot of pro-birth people argue "obviously things are different if the mother's life is in danger", but that ignores that there's often nothing obvious or definite about the line between "safe" and dangerous. Doctors are erring on the side of caution to avoid potential lawsuits and even jail time, and this is the result. People bleeding out in parking lots, suffering irreversible damage to their body, and people dying.
- Prior to the ban, politicians said that they feared doctors would use the “she’s in danger wink wink” defense and made it very very hard to use that defense, and as a result it’s very very hard for women to get the care they need.
  
  Well I guess they get dead women now.
  There needs to be a group of lawyers out there with spines of steel to take on a class action lawsuit(or several) to sue the fuck out of each of the states and politicians who pushed these anti-woman laws through and they resulted in women dying or being injured by healthcare being withheld... as mandated by the laws.
  These soulless pieces of shit only understand money, getting sued into the ground should get their fucking attention. I'd prefer jailtime, but Donald Dump shows republican shitheads don't go to jail, so I say class action lawsuit time.
- I've seen pro-life folks argue that but they frame it like... "the law is fine and it's a failure of the doctors not being willing to understand the law which led to deaths" and they'll also follow that up by saying that even if women die, they're saving more lives by preventing abortions so it's a net positive.
  I find it difficult to argue against that perspective. That is, I disagree with them but also it's hard to argue when they frame abortions as basically murder.
  
  Do we want doctors to also be lawyers? Spend all their time reading and interpreting laws and studying case precident on every little scenario? There's a reason why these are two separate and highly trained professions. We have a healthcare problem and we want doctors to spend their time doctoring, not lawyering. Also, it's never so clear on the medical side anyway, these are judgement calls. So it will go to court and review and all that stuff. The prosecution can always find one doctor to say it wasn't necessary.
  This is the old is fetus life.
  
  I think its easier to argue on premises. Why is abortion murder? The bible says life begins at first breath, etc...
  Edit: In the US its fairly easy, because you just have to get them to acknowledge its a religious belief. From there its easy to say that 'well do you believe in the 1st amendment' and note that establishment of religion is forbidden. Anti abortion laws have to be grounded in reality and from there its harder to argue that fetuses are persons.
  
  Do we pay doctors for their legal acumen now?
  This WHO article mentions this and cites the study
  Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions
  https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
  
  I've seen pro-life folks
  Those people are NOT pro-life. They're anti-abortion. It would be much better to use the correct term instead of pandering to the idea that it is about saving lives.
- And conservatives laughing.
- And when good faith legislators tried to make it easier for doctors to give care religious groups lobbied to block the fixes.
- I am pro-life in general, but that is a good point.
  
  Pro life is not the right term. It's much better to say you're anti abortion than to pretend it's about saving lives.
  
  I think you all need a new name for yourselves. It sounds absurd at this point
- Doctors are erring on the side of caution to avoid potential lawsuits and even jail time
  I get it's risky and money is needed to survive, and prison is bad, and all, but it seems a bit hypocritical for doctors to violate their modern day version of the Hippocratic Oath.
  Especially the part where it says:
  I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
  That's a place where life-saving decisions should always transcend law, and there should be a law (since we can't go on gentleman's agreements anymore) that says as much to cut out this partisan horse shit that vacillates and trends downward every year.
  Can't believe it's 2024 and our big accomplishment is that America figured out how to politicize the human body, and the uterus in particular.
  
  When they can is the key phrase. When the law says you can't it's no longer a doctors problem. This is 100% on the stupid politics.
  
  I get it's risky and money is needed to survive, and prison is bad, and all, but it seems a bit hypocritical for doctors to violate their modern day version of the Hippocratic Oath.
  They rationalize it by saying that they can't help anyone if they are sent to jail. It is partly true so I don't think we should blame the doctors here.
- Which is why we're also seeing entire maternity wards shut down. Doctors can't provide care without risking being jailed or being sued for malpractice, so they just won't practice at all.
Worth pointing out that she died in August of 2022* - not long after Roe v Wade was overturned. Apparently it took a while for the hoops to be jumped through to officially call this a preventable death.
So it's very, very likely that many women have died as well.
- I’m sure that was a typo and you meant 2022.
  
  Yep you're right
- Wasting lives, wasting precious resources investigating, and wasting everyone's time, while making more people miserable. Freedom, fuck yeah.
- This is what everyone thought would happen. Both sides thought this would happen, one side wants it to happen.
- this. this was the point.
Your body, their choice.
Just look at what pharma had gotten away with over the last four years. "Undergo this medical procedure or kiss your civil liberties goodbye!"
- What were the civil liberties under threat for the non vaccinated?
- I was honestly expecting to receive a lemmy flavored beatdown for that comment.
  I am of the persuasion that even if we consider the products to be safe and tested, coercion is still the wrong way to go about it.
  I did not reject the pharma shots because it was allegedly unsafe or experimental, but because I don't believe the threat it claims to prevent against represents a substantial enough risk to warrant all the destructive measures we've all been forced to endure.
When will a responsible politician be tried for murder? I know - never. But they should be. Because this shit is premeditated and with malicious, despicable intent.
Cause of death; infection, conservatism
"Pro-life"
I bet that's far from the only case, unfortunately.
- Just the first confirmed, and it's from 2022. Her original appointment was the exact same day the local law went into effect.
It's god's will. It was just her time.
/s
- Tots and pears.
- I am religious. I like having a non-scientific justification for my non-empircal beliefs.
  I think you have an issue with people using religion as a shield for their crappy behavior. Controlling someone else is vile, using your religion to do it is unbelievablely cruel.
  
  Similar to cops, there’s gonna be big acab type “all religious are assholes” soon if the good apples don’t start taking care of the bad apples.
  
  The problem is people using it to control others. Religion was important before for human development. I am unsure of its value now, when most places have rules and laws in place to keep people in check.
- Humans have a right to their thoughts and feelings including the weird ones. We have to protect that right. What they do not have a right to is control over anyone else on the basis of that. That is the problem here.
  The carceral side of the mental health system still exists and still hurts a lot of people, mostly poor and marginalized ones. People still die and get abused and lose their rights because of it. So it's not a thing to wish for the expansion of.
Republicans "saving" lives again.
I guess that was God's plan
this is a self defense situation now
This may be the first confirmed case, but it's probably not a good idea to make it the poster case for pro-choice. Let's look at the facts:
She was pregnant with twins, and wanted an abortion.
She couldn't legally do it in her home state Georgia, so she had to travel to North Carolina and get abortion pills there.
A few days later, when she was already back home, she started to suffer from severe complications.
The doctors in Georgia could not legally perform the procedure that could have saved her life - a surgical removal of what remained of the fetus - because it was to close to abortion.
The article says the clinic in North Carolina could have performed that procedure, but does not state why she was not brought there. Maybe her condition was too bad for the long travel? Maybe she was evacuated to the nearest hospital (a decision which does, generally, make a lot of sense) which could not have signed her away for an illegal (by Georgian law) operation outstate? Maybe it was medically and legally possible to drive/fly her there, but it was too expensive for her? Either way - it is clear that the ban on abortions in Georgia (made possible "thanks" to the Roe vs Wade overruling) is the direct reason why she could not get the treatment which could have save her life.
BUT!
The pro-life camp can easily pin this on the abortion pills, claiming that a nation-wide abortion bad would have prevented her from receiving them and therefore would have prevented her death (and the aborted twins' death. They won't forget to include that)
punch the first person to suggest this was an unintended consequence of these laws.
Working as designed.
- Actually it's the anti-abortion movement rooted in racism. From the article you linked ...
  Just like slavery, anti-abortion efforts are rooted in white supremacy, the exploitation of Black women, and placing women’s bodies in service to men. Just like slavery, maximizing wealth and consolidating power motivated the anti-abortion enterprise.
- You said: Never forget abortion is rooted in racism!
  The link you gave has a subtitle of:
  Today’s attacks on abortion access have a long history rooted in white supremacy.
  The attacks on abortion are rooted in racism.
  
  Yep I fucked up, words are hard sometimes
I don't want anyone to interpret this to mean that I think it was in any way OK that this woman died, but I do want to point out what I see as an objective bias here.
According to the National Libary of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4554338/
108 women died from complications related to legal abortions during a 12 year period between 1998 and 2010, for an average of 9 per year. Where are these stories on the front page?
This is a story that is posted to elicit an emotional reaction rather than a honest attempt to examine whether there is actual recorded medical evidence that more women are dying as a result of this policy.
Edit:
Post citing scientific data -11.
"Religious people should be locked in asylums" +10.
Says a lot about this community.
- On the one hand, you have some women dying of complications arising from an elective procedure that they chose to have, based either on medical necessity or other factors. On the other hand you have a woman in need of medical care that she wished to have, and was denied, due to her reproductive autonomy being denied, then dying as a result.
  Yet you have a hard time distinguishing what makes these things different?
  
  No, what I have a problem with is using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic and the perception that no women die from legal abortion procedures.
  Also, from the report: "In 20 of the 108 cases, the abortion was performed as a result of a severe medical condition where continuation of the pregnancy threatened the woman’s life."
  I point this out because another misconception is that you can always save the woman's life with an abortion if it is threatened by the pregnancy.
- sorry you're being downvoted, but i support scientific data AND putting religious people in asylums.
  
  I could care less about being downvoted, but it made me realize that even people who claim to be interested in objective truth and facts are no different than the religious people who they mock for ignoring scientific evidence for things like global warming. Everyone just wants to reaffirm what they already believe.
  "Still a man, he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" -Paul Simon

102 comments