Amber Nicole Thurman’s death from an infection in 2022 is believed to be the first confirmed maternal fatality linked to post-Roe bans.

Reproductive justice advocates have been warning for more than two years that the end of Roe v. Wade would lead to surge in maternal mortality among patients denied abortion care—and that the increase was likely to be greatest among low-income women of color. Now, a new report by ProPublica has uncovered the first such verified death. A 28-year-old medical assistant and Black single mother in Georgia died from a severe infection after a hospital delayed a routine medical procedure that had been outlawed under that state’s six-week abortion ban.

Amber Nicole Thurman’s death, in August 2022, was officially deemed “preventable” by a state committee tasked with reviewing pregnancy-related deaths. Thurman’s case is the first time a preventable abortion-related death has come to public attention since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, ProPublica’s Kavitha Surana reported.

Now, “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, during a call with media. “It cannot go on.”

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    282 days ago

    Prior to the ban, politicians said that they feared doctors would use the “she’s in danger wink wink” defense and made it very very hard to use that defense, and as a result it’s very very hard for women to get the care they need.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      252 days ago

      Well I guess they get dead women now.

      There needs to be a group of lawyers out there with spines of steel to take on a class action lawsuit(or several) to sue the fuck out of each of the states and politicians who pushed these anti-woman laws through and they resulted in women dying or being injured by healthcare being withheld… as mandated by the laws.

      These soulless pieces of shit only understand money, getting sued into the ground should get their fucking attention. I’d prefer jailtime, but Donald Dump shows republican shitheads don’t go to jail, so I say class action lawsuit time.