The family of a young mother from Georgia who died in 2022 as a result of a delay abortion Care says Amber Thurman's death could have been avoided in a case that has become part of the national abortion debate.
After a medical abortion, ThurmanThe 28-year-old was taken to hospital. However, according to a ProPublica story published in September, doctors waited 19 hours before performing surgery to remove the fetal tissue. The report includes information from a private government investigation detailing Thurman's treatment and death.
“I feel like it was medical malpractice, and I'm saying that because it was preventable,” said Andrika Thurman, Amber Thurman's sister.
Thurman's family wants her to be remembered as a real person.
“Amber was loved,” said Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother. “She had ambitions. She had goals. She had dreams. Everything she did, she did for her son, to give him a better life.”
Amber's story
In the summer of 2022, Thurman had recently moved to a new location with her 6-year-old son, Messiah, and was applying to nursing school.
When she found out she was pregnant with twins, her family said they worried about how she would care for them.
“As her big sister, my response was, 'I support you in whatever decision you make, I'm here,'” Cjauna Williams said.
At the time, Thurman's home state of Georgia had just implemented its six-week abortion ban following the Roe v. Wade had fallen.
“I don’t understand how such a law could have been passed. They say the United States of America is the land of the free. So why can’t women make decisions about their own health? “My sister died is a result and I just don’t understand it,” Andrika Thurman said.
Weeks later, on August 13, when Thurman was nine weeks pregnant, she decided to drive four hours to North Carolina to have a surgical abortion. Her best friend, Ricaria Baker, told ProPublica that she was traveling with Thurman that day, but they missed the appointment due to traffic.
According to ProPublica, a clinic employee offered Thurman the FDA-approved abortion pill combination that accounts for over half of all U.S. abortions. Baker told the nonprofit investigative journalism portal Propublica that Thurman signed a press release saying she was aware that adverse reactions sometimes occur.
Days after taking the second pill, Thurman experienced severe cramps. Her boyfriend called 911 to report that she was vomiting blood.
Shortly before 7 p.m. local time on August 18, Thurman was taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, about 20 miles south of Atlanta.
According to reports, it was supposed to be 19 hours before doctors decided to perform a dilation and curettage surgery, also known as D&C. This is a common procedure used to remove remaining fetal tissue from the uterus.
Williams told CBS News she believed her daughter's blood pressure was stable.
According to ProPublica, Thurman's heart stopped during surgery. She died on August 19, 2022. Her death certificate stated that she died at conception due to septic shock and ingestion of products.
“I was there, she gave me instructions. You have to watch out for Messiah. “You have to take care of my baby and the next time I saw her she was lifeless,” Williams said.
A spokesperson for Piedmont Hospital issued a statement to CBS News that said, in part: “Ms. Thurman arrived at our emergency department in serious condition and immediately began treatment. The timing of her diagnostic workup, stabilization, interventions to treat her sepsis, and Surgery was based solely on clinically based best practices.
ProPublica investigation
Georgia has a Maternal Mortality Review Committee made up of more than 30 experts, including 10 doctors. It examines patient cases to determine the root causes of Georgia's rising maternal mortality rate.
Their findings will not be made public, but ProPublica has obtained a confidential report on Thurman from the review board.
It wasn't until September 2024 that Thurman's family learned new information about her death. According to the review board's report, completed in July, there is a “good chance” that providing a D&C earlier could have prevented Thurman's death.
Thurman's family hired attorney Ben Crump to investigate the case.
“The medical records have still not been released to tell us what the doctors who treated her say,” Crump said.
Kavitha Surana is the ProPublica writer who obtained the report from a confidential source nearly two years after Thurman's death. She said she was able to see a recap of Thurman's day at the hospital.
Surana said the committee's report summarizes Thurman's treatment on Aug. 18 and 19 and shows her health was deteriorating by the hour. Although her condition worsened, doctors did not operate on her until 19 hours after her arrival.
“They (the committee) are tasked with writing down the factors that led to the death and determining how great the impact may have been. So they chose a large impact and checked the box about whether there was a high probability that the outcome could be prevented,” she explained.
It is not known why doctors waited 19 hours before operating on Thurman. Many doctors in states with restrictive abortion bans have publicly admitted that they fear losing their medical licenses or being prosecuted if they violate the law. A pro-life obstetrician told CBS News that doctors should have acted sooner based on the report.
In October the Supreme Court of Georgia has reinstated the state's restrictive six-week abortion ban while the state's appeal is pending. A judge had previously struck down the ban on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
The fight over abortion
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