CNA Staff, Sep 18, 2024 / 16:50 pm
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday amplified claims by several news outlets that a woman has died as the result of pro-life laws. But doctors say that the Georgia woman, Amber Thurman, died because of the abortion pill and medical malpractice.
ProPublica’s disputed report claimed that Georgia’s restrictions on abortion delayed access to medical care, causing the death of a woman named Amber Nicole Thurman. Thurman died at age 28 in 2022 after being hospitalized due to an infection after she took abortion pills, according to the report.
Thurman received the abortion pills out of state in North Carolina because she was more than six weeks pregnant, the report says. Georgia law limits abortion after six weeks, but Thurman was about nine weeks pregnant when she procured the chemical abortion, according to the Washington Examiner.
Harris blamed Thurman’s death on Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying: “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.”
Harris’ campaign announced she will speak Friday about Thurman’s death in Atlanta as well as that of another Georgia woman, Candi Miller, who died after not seeking medical help following severe complications due to a chemical abortion.
What caused Amber Thurman’s death?
Some news reports blamed pro-life limits on abortion for Thurman’s death, but Georgia state law explicitly allows abortions when the mother’s life or physical health is at risk. Thurman had a chemical abortion in South Carolina prior to her arrival in the emergency room, and when she arrived, her unborn twins had no heart activity.
Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and a board-certified OB-GYN who has practiced for two decades, said that Thurman’s death “was caused by legal abortion drugs” as well as medical negligence.
“Amber Thurman’s tragic death, recently covered by multiple news organizations, was caused by side effects of legal abortion drugs and medical negligence, not pro-life laws,” Francis said in a Tuesday statement.
Thurman went to the emergency room five days after she experienced complications from the abortion pill. Tissue from her deceased babies — unborn twins — remained in her uterus, causing an infection, according to ProPublica. As there was no cardiac activity in the fetuses when Thurman arrived at the hospital, her unborn babies were no longer alive.
Doctors considered a dilation and curettage “D&C” procedure, which would have removed the twins’ remains. The following day, her doctors did not perform the D&C, and by the time she went to the operating room, more serious problems had developed, including hemorrhaging. From her arrival, it took the doctors 20 hours to operate. She died on the operating table.
ProPublica interviewed Thurman’s best friend, Ricaria Baker, who went with Thurman to obtain the abortion. According to Baker, Thurman missed her scheduled D&C abortion at the South Carolina clinic due to traffic and was told by an employee to have a chemical abortion using the drug regimen mifepristone and misoprostol. Baker notes that Thurman took the pills as she was directed.
“Despite taking the drugs as she was instructed and seeking timely care when she experienced complications, she still died,” Francis commented. “Rather than highlighting the dangers of these drugs, which have caused numerous deaths, abortion proponents are instead trying to blame Georgia’s laws in their push to protect induced abortion at all costs.”
According to the FDA warning label for the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, between 2.9% and 4.6% of women will visit the emergency room after taking the drugs.
Abortion pills have four times as many complications as surgical abortions, according to a 2023 report by the Charlotte Lozier Institute. As many as 1 in 5 women will suffer complications after a chemical abortion and as many as 15% will experience hemorrhaging, while 2% will experience infection.
Watch @DrFrancis4Life's video about this tragic story. https://t.co/WlO6j6u3MG pic.twitter.com/rF28ciQfjW
— AAPLOG (@aaplog) September 18, 2024
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ProPublica, which first reported on the woman’s death, acknowledged in its initial report that “it is not clear from the record available why the doctors waited to provide a D&C” but cites Georgia’s abortion limitations as the cause.
A state committee of 10 doctors said that Thurman’s death was preventable and the hospital’s delay played a role in the fatal outcome.
In Francis’ opinion, it was the doctors’ negligence and the abortion pill complications that killed Thurman — not the state’s pro-life laws, which allow abortions and other lifesaving medical procedures in cases where the woman’s physical health or life is at risk.
Georgia state law also has other exceptions for abortions, including exceptions for rape and incest for up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
There were also no fetal heartbeats detected in the 9-week-old unborn twins, meaning it would not have been an abortion.
“Amber Thurman’s state of Georgia clearly allows physicians to intervene in medical emergencies or when there is no detectable fetal heartbeat, both of which applied to her,” Francis said. “Don’t be misled by those who advocate for induced abortion over the health and safety of women.”
“This woman did not have to die,” said Dr. Susan Bane, another doctor with AAPLOG. “Based on the timeline and her symptoms, she should have had [the D&C procedure] done as soon as she could get to the hospital. It was medical negligence and had nothing to do with any sort of law in Georgia or elsewhere.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called the rhetoric around the deaths of Thurman and Miller “deadly misinformation.”
“We mourn the senseless loss of Amber, Candi, and their unborn children. We agree their deaths were preventable. But let’s be absolutely clear: Georgia’s law and every pro-life state law calls on doctors to act in circumstances just like theirs,” said Katie Daniel, SBA’s state policy director. “If abortion advocates weren’t spreading misinformation and confusion to score political points, it’s possible the outcome would have been different.”
Do pro-life states ban emergency medical care for pregnant women?
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, no pro-life states prevent emergency lifesaving medical treatments for pregnant women, according to one research institute.
“Make no mistake: All state abortion bans currently in effect contain exceptions to ‘prevent the death’ or ‘preserve the life’ of the pregnant person,’ according to KFF,” Francis noted. KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, is a leading health policy organization.
KFF outlines state laws on abortion and details what exceptions pro-life states have.
Amid reports that women have been barred from medical care due to pro-life abortion limits, the Charlotte Lozier Institute investigated the claim and found that all pro-life states allow doctors to treat women with pregnancy emergencies according to their medical judgment.
“All pro-life state laws allow doctors to exercise their medical judgment to treat women with pregnancy emergencies. No law requires ‘imminence’ or ‘certainty’ before a doctor can act to save the patient’s life,” read the Sept. 13 Charlotte Lozier Institute fact sheet by Tess Cox, Dr. Ingrid Skop, and Mary Harned.
The institute found that all pro-life states allow emergency treatments during pregnancy-related emergencies, following reports of women allegedly not receiving the medical care they require in cases of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, and other emergencies.
The institute found that all but five of these state laws included language allowing abortion when a woman’s health was in serious jeopardy, while in states without this language, the law permits doctors to use “reasonable” medical judgment to determine if an abortion is necessary.
“Every state with a strong pro-life law permits doctors to treat women suffering from spontaneous miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, and the treatment of these conditions is not considered an abortion under any law,” the institute noted.
“Doctors and hospitals who fail to provide patients with necessary treatment in emergency circumstances may be committing malpractice,” the fact sheet noted.
The institute cites recent cases that raise concerns that state laws may be preventing pregnant women from receiving necessary care. One woman was turned away from a hospital multiple times before an ectopic pregnancy ruptured her fallopian tube. Other articles report instances of hospitals turning away women who were suffering from ectopic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, premature rupture of membranes, and other circumstances.
“While it is not always easy to determine from a news article whether medical malpractice occurred, pro-life state laws are clear: Doctors can intervene in medical emergencies,” the authors wrote.
