Amber Nicole Thurman’s Death Was Preventable

This piece first appeared in our weekly newsletter, The Fallout.

It was only a matter of time before a story like Amber Nicole Thurman’s emerged: A woman dying because she could not access life-saving abortion thanks to Georgia’s extreme abortion ban.

The details around Thurman’s death as reported this week by ProPublica are so agonizing because her death was so preventable, and her story looks so familiar to abortion advocates. Thurman, 28, was a Black woman who, like many patients who access abortion care, was already a parent. Thurman sought out abortion care because she wanted to be able to provide for the 6-year-old she already had. Her last words to her own mother before she died were reportedly, “Promise me you’ll take care of my son.”

It cannot be said enough: Amber Thurman’s death was preventable.

Thurman deserved so much better than to be caught in the tug of war of legal challenges around Georgia’s six-week ban. She should not have been forced to travel to North Carolina for care. And she shouldn’t have died in a Georgia hospital waiting for a life-saving dilation and curettage while administrators, lawyers, and doctors weighed their own professional interests against Thurman’s deteriorating medical condition. At nearly every turn, the institutions that should have supported and protected Thurman and her young son instead failed her.

Thurman may be the first reported person since Roe v. Wade was overturned whose death was directly caused by a state abortion ban, but hers isn’t the only one. ProPublica uncovered at least one other death related to the denial of abortion care in Georgia alone. And with each new death that’s reported, it’s imperative that the media report that every single one was not just preventable, but also an intentional act of state violence targeting pregnant people.

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