TThere are other names, but this is the one we know: Amber Thurman has become the first woman whose death could have been prevented in connection with the abortion ban since Dobbs. Her name and story became public thanks to a report by ProPublica’s Kavitha Surana that detailed how Thurman, a 28-year-old black mother of a young son who dreamed of becoming a nurse, died a painful and preventable death in Georgia after doctors at a hospital there refused to perform a simple, life-saving procedure on her — because the law wouldn’t allow them to.
The article highlights the reality of abortion bans that, even in states like Georgia, with supposed exceptions for maternal health, effectively sentence women who want to end their pregnancies or who suffer serious complications to death. They force doctors to choose between best medical practices and their own legal protections—and in doing so, women’s lives are seen as something disposable, which is alarming.
Thurman, who lived in Georgia, died just weeks after her state’s abortion ban went into effect. She had just reached a new level of stability for herself and her young son when she found out she was pregnant with twins in 2022. Because her pregnancy was already past her state’s gestational age limit, she took a road trip to North Carolina with her best friend, where a clinic gave her abortion pills. Abortion pills have very low complication rates, but rare problems do occur. In Thurman’s case, not all of the pregnancy tissue had been expelled from her uterus, and she arrived at the Georgia emergency room with bleeding, pain, and a drop in blood pressure — telltale signs of an infection.
Thurman could have been treated with a curettage, or dilation and curettage, a procedure in which the cervix is dilated to create an opening through which instruments can be inserted to empty the contents of the uterus. The procedure is a common form of abortion, but it is also a routine part of miscarriages and other gynecologic care. If the tissue had been removed quickly, she probably would have been fine: A curettage requires no special equipment and only takes about 15 minutes.
But Georgia’s abortion ban made the D&C procedure illegal, making it illegal except in cases of “spontaneous” or “natural” miscarriage. Because Thurman had taken abortion pills, it was illegal to treat her miscarriage. She suffered in a hospital bed for 20 hours, developed sepsis, and began to suffer organ failure. By the time Georgia doctors finally agreed to treat her, it was too late.
We don’t know how many other women have died because of abortion bans. These cases are often shrouded in secrecy, stigma, and confidentiality. And few families, least of all those grieving the loss of vibrant, loving young women, are willing to subject themselves to the smears and scrutiny that come with reporting abortion-related deaths.
But we won’t know that either, because the states where these deaths occur have no incentive to disclose them. Thurman’s death was deemed preventable by a state maternal mortality review board. But it was only ProPublica’s reporting that made her cause of death public. Even her family wasn’t told that Amber could have been saved: The state didn’t bother to tell them, and they found out from the ProPublica reporter.
But even if we knew all the names of those killed by the abortion ban, we still wouldn’t be able to appreciate the magnitude of what has been stolen from us. Every life—every woman’s life—is a world of possibilities: the negligent murders to which the law condemns women like Amber are destroying those worlds.
Amber will never realize her dream of going to nursing school. Her best friend, Ricaria Baker, who drove her to the clinic in North Carolina, will never laugh with her again. Her mother has lost a child. Her son, who was six when Thurman died, will grow up without his mother: she will never know the man he has become, and he will never understand her as an adult.
All because the self-interest of cynical Republican politicians, the saccharine, misogynistic sentimentality of the anti-abortion movement, and the myopic bigotry of six Supreme Court justices—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and John Roberts—were considered more important than her life, her dreams, her ambitions, and all the love her family had for her.
We know there are certainly more women like Thurman. We may never know their stories, or their names. But we know we would be worse off without them; we know they deserved better; we know their lives mattered—more than politics and more than anyone else’s religion. We can pray for those who loved them, and we can fight for those who come after them. And we can also hope that Amber Thurman’s face will haunt the nightmares of those responsible for them. I know it will haunt mine.
