The family of a Georgia woman who died after a medication abortion — and was subsequently cited by Democrats as a tragic example of red states' “restrictive” abortion laws — is blaming the hospital for the woman's death and preparing a lawsuit .
Amber Thurman, 28, died in 2022 from complications from taking abortion pills. She traveled to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge to undergo a dilation and curettage procedure to remove remaining tissue from the aborted pregnancy, but hospital staff reportedly waited about 20 hours before performing the procedure.
High-profile civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump will represent the family in their upcoming lawsuit against the hospital. According to Spectrum News, Crump blamed the hospital for Thurman's death and not Georgia's recent law banning abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
“Even under Georgia law, doctors had a duty to act to save Amber,” Crump said last week. “She had taken the abortion pills and there was still tissue left. There was no viable fetus or anything else that would have prevented her from saving her life while she was suffering.”
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Attorney Ben Crump represents the family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died as a result of a medical abortion. (Robin L. Marshall/Getty Images)
“They have a duty to stabilize her and then give her the opportunity to go to another hospital facility,” Crump said. “But you can’t let her suffer and die in your hospital bed if the death is preventable.”
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Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the LIFE Act in 2019, but it did not go into effect until 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade repealed, effectively ending recognition of a constitutional right to abortion.
Governor Brian Kemp, who signed Georgia's Heartbeat Law into law, is seen here delivering his State of the State address in Atlanta on January 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Thurman's death in August 2022 has since become the first known abortion death since the Supreme Court decision, with Democrats including Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz citing her death as a result of “restrictive” Republican-backed abortion laws.
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Georgia's heartbeat law states that “no abortion shall be performed if the unborn child has a detectable human heartbeat, except in the case of a medical emergency or a medically unsuccessful pregnancy.” The law provides exceptions for abortions after six weeks, including in the event of a medical emergency or a medically meaningless pregnancy or a pregnancy caused by rape or incest, if the baby's expected gestational age is less than 20 weeks.
ProPublica first published an article about Thurman's death last month calling for the repeal of Roe v. Wade ruling and the state's new abortion restrictions were responsible for her death and the death of another Georgia woman, Candi Miller.
Harris cited Thurman's death Sunday during an interview on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy.”
“[Thurman] was, as described by her family, so excited and so ambitious, and she had plans. Then she found out she was pregnant and didn't want to go through with her pregnancy. And she lived in Georgia and couldn't get care there because she was over six weeks old. And so she ended up in another state, and…she couldn't get there in time. And because the other state was so overwhelmed with all these women from all these southern states who couldn't get treatment in their own state, her window for her appointment was closed and instead of a surgical procedure she had medication and so on went home, had then some complications and went to the hospital because she was bleeding.
“And they hesitated for 20 hours before treating her,” Harris continued, suggesting that Georgia law denied her life-saving treatment.
In an earlier press release in which Crump announced he would represent Thurman's family members in court, he blamed Georgia's abortion law for Thurman's death.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the Philip Chosky Theater in Pittsburgh. (Rebecca Droke/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Amber Thurman's preventable death is a terrible consequence of draconian abortion laws that place politics over women's lives. These lawmakers bear responsibility for creating hesitation among health care workers who fear the legal consequences of providing necessary care. “We are committed to justice for Amber and fighting for a country where no other family suffers such a devastating loss because of dangerous, unnecessary legal hurdles,” Crump said in the press release.
Gynecologists have criticized the Democrats' latest narrative as a misleading story propagated by the media.
“It didn't surprise me that this pro-abortion media tried to blame Georgia's pro-life laws, but actually Georgia's laws allow doctors to intervene to save the woman's life,” said Charlotte Lozier Institute, Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs, Dr. Ingrid Skop recently told Fox News Digital.
“I think the Democratic Party is only focused on the issue of abortion because the American people don't understand the laws. Women are often hurt by abortions. It's not necessary for women to live their best lives. And of course.” Of course, it's the scaremongering and the lies that have gotten us to the point where we are today, where people even think there is a reason to refer to the law.”
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Thurman's stepfather, Elijah Warren, has urged Democrats, particularly Harris, to stop politicizing the death, saying that when he sees politicians talking about Thurman's death, it is “like a funeral repeated over and over again.”
“I can see [Harris] “This is the only remedy against Trump in Georgia,” Warren told the New York Post this week.
“She’s going to move this forward; I expect that. But it's too much. It’s like a funeral happening over and over again when I see it.”
Warren said he viewed Thurman's death, which was caused by septic shock, “as a matter of hospital neglect” rather than Georgia law.
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“You should have taken care of my stepdaughter… The abortion has already taken place. There was no heartbeat,” he said. “You should have just cleaned the handkerchief; That would have saved her life.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Crump's office for updates on the upcoming lawsuit, as well as the Harris campaign, but did not receive a response by publication time.
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