Her name was Amber Nicole Thurman. She was 28 years old. She loved being a mom to her 6-year-old son, and she had plans to go to nursing school. And she was one of the first people to have died as a direct result of the abortion bans implemented since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, according to a new report from ProPublica.
Thurman lived in Georgia, which prohibits terminating a pregnancy after around six weeks, or two weeks after the last missed period. She died in August 2022, after a local hospital delayed treating her for 20 hours following an incomplete medication abortion, according to an official state committee report reviewed by ProPublica. The committee, which included ten doctors who evaluated Thurman’s case, concluded there was a “good chance” her death could have been prevented had the hospital treated her in a timely manner. Just as has happened to dozens of women across the country in the past two years, physicians appear to have hesitated to provide Thurman the care she needed out of fear of breaking the law.
Coat-hanger imagery was inescapable during protests in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision as a reminder of the lengths to which desperate women went to end their pregnancies in the mid-20th century. And yet as people who’ve worked in abortion care in any capacity could tell you, medicine and practical support for abortion seekers have advanced considerably in the decades since the pre-Roe era. The proliferation of abortion pills and access to information about them, either online or through community networks, has made self-managed abortion safer than ever. So advocates warned that when pregnant people died as a result of post-Dobbs abortion bans — because it was a matter of when, not if — it’d be likely that their stories would more closely resemble that of Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 when a hospital in Ireland denied her emergency care, than that of Gerri Santorro, who bled out alone in a motel room in Connecticut in 1964 after attempting to self-induce an abortion.
These two women, generations and countries apart, have been symbols of the global fight for abortion rights. In 1973, Ms. Magazine ran the crime scene photo of Santorro’s death in an article without identifying her; the devastating portrait helped galvanize the modern abortion-rights movement in the U.S. Half a century later, Halappanavar’s case catalyzed the successful push to legalize abortion in Ireland. It was a clear-cut instance where doctors should have provided her emergency care, yet cited the Catholic country’s stringent abortion ban to deny that care at the time.
New: At least two women in Georgia died after they couldn't access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state, ProPublica has found. This is one of their stories. https://t.co/ZZhqtEQdWB
— ProPublica (@propublica) September 16, 2024
Thurman’s death seems to follow the contours of Halappanavar’s, according to ProPublica. Because of Georgia’s ban, Thurman was forced to travel to North Carolina to get an abortion. She hit traffic in her hourslong journey and was late to the appointment; the clinic said it couldn’t hold her scheduled surgical abortion. The clinic told Thurman that her two options were to reschedule or to have a medication abortion, since she was around nine or ten weeks pregnant. Thurman had already lost a day of work, paid for child care, and traveled for hours, so she chose the two-pill medication-abortion regimen.
Research has found taking abortion pills is safer than taking Tylenol or Viagra. Out of nearly 6 million patients who took mifepristone between 2000 and 2022, there were only 32 deaths, most of which were not connected to the drug itself. According to ProPublica, Thurman’s abortion went on as usual after she took mifepristone, the first pill in the regimen which stops the pregnancy from growing, in the clinic. But something went wrong after she took misoprostol, the second drug which helps expel the contents of the uterus, a day later. She was in pain for days afterward and bleeding more than she should, soaking through more than one pad per hour. On the evening of August 18, five days after Thurman drove to and from North Carolina, she vomited blood and passed out at home. Her partner called an ambulance and she arrived at Piedmont Henry Hospital in the Atlanta suburbs at 6:51 p.m.
The state committee examined medical records showing that Thurman was displaying symptoms of an incomplete, septic abortion, according to the report. Her white-blood-cell count was dangerously high; her blood pressure was low; an ultrasound showed there was tissue in her uterus; and her physician noted a foul odor during a pelvic exam. The course of treatment should have been a D&C (dilation and curettage) to evacuate the uterus, according to the report. The hospital network itself describes D&C as a “fairly common, minor surgical procedure” used during miscarriages. But the exception in Georgia’s abortion ban for cases where the pregnant person’s life is in danger is confusing and vague — and penalties for doctors found in violation of the law are high, including a sentence of up to a decade in prison. Georgia law says the procedure is not considered an abortion as long as physicians are removing a pregnancy following a “spontaneous abortion,” which legislators defined as “naturally occurring” in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth. Because Thurman disclosed to the hospital that she took medication, however, her abortion was not considered “spontaneous.”
Though an obstetrician diagnosed Thurman with “acute severe sepsis,” according to the report, she wasn’t given a D&C that night. By 5 a.m., she was in critical condition and doctors gave her more antibiotics in hopes of curbing the infection. By 6:45 a.m. — 12 hours after she first got to the hospital — Thurman was taken to the intensive-care unit, and by 9 a.m. her organs were failing, according to labwork. By noon, an ICU doctor told the OB/GYN on duty that Thurman’s condition continued to deteriorate, but she still hadn’t received a D&C. She was taken to an operating room at 2 p.m., where doctors started the procedure; it wasn’t enough to stabilize her, and the doctors performed a hysterectomy trying to save her. Thurman’s heart stopped in the middle of surgery.
Anti-abortion advocates will inevitably argue that Thurman’s death is not connected to Georgia’s abortion ban. You can see the spin on this case coming from a mile away: They’ll say this case shows that abortion pills are dangerous, despite their long track record of safety. They’ll argue that states should pass laws prohibiting patients from traveling for abortion care, arguing that doing so puts pregnant people at risk. They’ll blame doctors for purportedly misinterpreting the law, as they did in the case of Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a Texas woman who died in the summer of 2022 following several life-threatening pregnancy complications and who may be alive today had she been given the choice to have an abortion.
If it was up to the anti-abortion movement, cases like Thurman’s would remain out of the public eye entirely. Just last week, John McEntee — a former Trump-administration official, a senior adviser to Project 2025, and a frequent TikTok troll — asked in a video: “Can someone track down the women Kamala Harris said are bleeding out in parking lots because Roe v. Wade was overturned?” He smirked as he added, “Don’t hold your breath.”
Hundreds of women flooded the comment section of McEntee’s post with their own stories of being denied abortion care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other complications. Then there are the many well-publicized stories that have dominated headlines since Dobbs. There’s Jaci Statton, who was told to wait in the parking lot of an Oklahoma hospital until she was “crashing” in order to get an abortion for her nonviable, molar pregnancy. Anya Cook nearly bled out in the bathroom of a hair salon after her water broke at 17 weeks and a Florida hospital sent her home to pass the miscarriage. Kyleigh Thurman lost her fallopian tube and nearly died bleeding out after a Texas emergency room refused to treat her ectopic pregnancy. Amanda Zurawski nearly died of sepsis and will have trouble conceiving again after a Texas hospital sent her home rather than terminating her unviable pregnancy. A study published by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health just last week includes dozens of anecdotes from physicians who say abortion bans have forced them to deviate from standard medical practices, contributing to delays in care and worse health outcomes. Taken together, these cases prove the overturn of Roe unleashed a profound health-care crisis, even if the anti-abortion movement is determined to ignore it.
Any of these women could have been Amber Nicole Thurman. There are almost certainly more people who’ve died after being unable to access abortion care whom we just don’t know about yet — and maybe never will. But the fact remains that had the Supreme Court preserved a constitutional right to abortion, this 28-year-old mom would have had the option to terminate her pregnancy at a clinic in Georgia. Instead, Dobbs allowed the state to ban abortions, forcing Thurman to travel and to have a medication abortion that was not her first choice and likely making her doctors hesitate to act when her life depended on their help.
Thurman should be alive today. It is a direct consequence of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointments and Republicans’ anti-abortion legislation that she is not.
The Cut offers an online tool you can use to search by Zip Code for professional providers, including clinics, hospitals, and independent OB/GYNs, as well as for abortion funds, transportation options, and information for remote resources like receiving the abortion pill by mail. For legal guidance, contact Repro Legal Helpline at 844-868-2812 or the Abortion Defense Network.
