Georgia has unexpectedly become the center of the national abortion debate following a slew of reports on an untimely death in the state.
In-depth reporting from Pro-Publica and subsequent reporting from other publications like Newsweek and MSNBC have focused on the death of Amber Nicole Thurman.
This reporting says that Thurman discovered “she was pregnant with twins in the summer of 2022” and aimed to get an abortion. But her discovery came after Georgia signed a law banning the procedure after six weeks, and she was beyond that point in her pregnancy.
She decided to schedule an abortion procedure in North Carolina. En route to the clinic, she experienced traffic, which made her lose her spot due to a high volume of patients. A clinic employee instead offered a two-pill abortion regimen consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol.
Although she took the pills as directed, Thurman had to be hospitalized in her home state of Georgia due to adverse reactions to the medication.
The doctors discovered tissue lodged in her uterus that was contributing to her ailments but were hesitant to conduct a specific procedure because of the newly signed abortion laws. Doctors were reportedly afraid that conducting this treatment would result in them being held criminally liable.
They gave her various other treatments for several days until it was determined that she should be surgically treated. It was during surgery that Thurman’s heart reportedly stopped.
According to Pro-Publica, Thurman’s death was deemed to be “preventable” but occurred because of Georgia’s laws prohibiting most abortions after six weeks. This conclusion has been used by Democrats to decry pro-life legislation in Georgia and beyond.
Georgia Sen. the Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) cited the report saying “abortion bans have fatal consequences.” Even Vice President Kamala Harris cited the case during her interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.
But since that report, other publications have come out to say that Pro-Publica’s conclusion is misleading. According to a Daily Wire write-up on the case, Thurman’s tragic death has “everything to do with taking dangerous abortion pills without any follow-up care.”
That write-up says that the “remains of her aborted babies remained in her uterus and were causing her to develop an infection,” which led to the hospitalization. It also says the claim that Georgia’s laws caused the death is incorrect because “there was no fetal heartbeat since the twins were already dead, thus the law wouldn’t have delayed care.”
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists reaffirmed that it was the drugs that caused Thurman’s death, not the laws. In a statement to The Christian Post, AAPLOG said:
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.
Pro-Publica indicates it has another example to support its claims in the coming days.