A Georgia woman has died after an abortion ban delayed lifesaving care
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.”
'Pro-life' my ass
It has never been "pro-life" or about saving the lives of "children". This has always been about controlling women.
Most aren't aware, but this is the crux of the issue. Evangelicals do not value equity and presume others are ignorant/incorrect.
Doubtless you have that. Off the top of my head, you should expect to find:
Fascists don't just lie, they invert the truth precisely.
Trickle-down economics, for example, was pitched as "a rising tide lifts all boats", when in reality trickle down economics is the exact opposite of that. A rising tide lifting all boats would be the poorest person getting money until they have as much money as the second poorest person, then those two getting money until they have as much money as the third poorest person, and so on. Lying, reality-inverting fascists got up on a stage--in front of people-- and said that process was the same as giving the people with the most money even more money.
In a way it's brilliant, because it's so brazenly and bafflingly stupid that it acts like an EMP for logical thought. Which they know, and intentionally utilize. The most important skill a fascist has to have is the ability to make people stupid enough to vote for them. What better way than to go for the jugular and assault reality itself?
With an incessant anti-reality static, courtesy of your fox newses and heritage foundations, reality offers no obstacle at all.
Stop using “prolife” as a term.
It frames their stance positively, call it what it is: “anti-choice”
"Forced-breeders"
Medical slavery enthusiasts.
Pro-forced birth.
Anti-rights
They are pro-life, just not your life.
No they are not pro life, and they should never be allowed to use that term or make that claim without protests.
They are anti-abortion. That is as far as it goes. They don't care about giving an expecting mother pre-natal care if she can't afford it. The certainly don't give a shit about post-natal care. And if there's something wrong with her baby an they both die? That's "god's will."
All they care about is making and keeping abortion illegal. It's that binary of an issue for them and it's sick.
It's so fucking comical to me too that they call it "god's will" when children die of the most horrifying, excruciating diseases imagnable long before they're capable of understanding what's happening, but when a pregnant woman makes an informed decision not to die during childbirth over a shrimp living inside her taco, that's a bridge too far, and the all-mighty creator and ruler of the universe is very disappointed in you for killing one of his children when he was powerless to stop it.
Sweetie, maybe your fairytale sugar daddy's will isn't all that benevolent. 💀
You would think that an omnipotent being could just prevent any abortion from happening if he didn’t want them to happen.
No, no, you see it's free will. Which makes total sense, because god can't possibly foresee what we're going to do, which is a problem omniscient beings definitely struggle with. Or if he can foresee what we're going to do and he is omniscient, then he's not omnibenevolent because he had exact foreknowledge of what was going to happen and let it anyway. After all, why "test" if you already know the precise outcome if not to watch people suffer for fun? If you need people to learn lessons, why can't you just magically teach them those lessons? And if you're not capable of this, how are you omnipotent?
Pick at most two of the three; you can't have all of them.
I don't think everyone ever claimed the Abrahamic god to be benevolent.
Christians are routinely taught that god is not just loving ("benevolent") but all-loving ("omnibenevolent"). Here's the Pope talking about how "tender" and "astonishing" and "gratuitous" god's love is. 4:8 of the First Epistle of John in the Bible – part of the de jure and de facto source of truth about god for Christianity – reads: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
Sure we could reduce that down to "omnibenevolent as long as you love him back", as e.g. Proverbs 8:17 says "I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me." But even then, god heavily abuses those who love him. The Bible tries to justify this bizarre cosmic domestic abuse in the book of Job, but it's one of the most ridiculous, fucked up stories imaginable where god literally bets with Satan that he can fuck up one of his most devoted follower's life as much as he wants and he still won't turn away from him.
They are also against contraception, because they are pro forced birth.
I'd say they were pro forced birth except, as we see in this example, they don't even care if there is no birth.
They have a concept of a birth.
Seeing that they oppose school lunches, gun control and free healthcare, not your children's lives either.
They are pro forced birth. They don't care about infants, children, or adults.
If they were pro-life and consistent that lives are more important than human rights, they would also be clamoring for gun control on the basis of saving children's lives in schools. Or, fuck, universal healthcare is an easy one, higher taxes for the wealthy aren't even harming anyone's rights and it saves lives.
But it is actually about controlling women with medical slavery and claims about saving lives are all lies they don't actually believe.
I propose to stop using "pro-life" and "pro-choice". Instead use "pro-quantity" and "pro-quality".
You're right it's not pro-lefe, it's really anti-choice.
A lot of pro-birth people argue "obviously things are different if the mother's life is in danger", but that ignores that there's often nothing obvious or definite about the line between "safe" and dangerous. Doctors are erring on the side of caution to avoid potential lawsuits and even jail time, and this is the result. People bleeding out in parking lots, suffering irreversible damage to their body, and people dying.
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.
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.
I've seen pro-life folks argue that but they frame it like... "the law is fine and it's a failure of the doctors not being willing to understand the law which led to deaths" and they'll also follow that up by saying that even if women die, they're saving more lives by preventing abortions so it's a net positive.
I find it difficult to argue against that perspective. That is, I disagree with them but also it's hard to argue when they frame abortions as basically murder.
Do we want doctors to also be lawyers? Spend all their time reading and interpreting laws and studying case precident on every little scenario? There's a reason why these are two separate and highly trained professions. We have a healthcare problem and we want doctors to spend their time doctoring, not lawyering. Also, it's never so clear on the medical side anyway, these are judgement calls. So it will go to court and review and all that stuff. The prosecution can always find one doctor to say it wasn't necessary.
This is the old is fetus life.
Yeah, and the problem there is that logic and science won't change someone's mind about it. It's subjective from their perspective.
Fetus is life, but contained within another life. Therefore, container's life takes precedence.
I think its easier to argue on premises. Why is abortion murder? The bible says life begins at first breath, etc...
Edit: In the US its fairly easy, because you just have to get them to acknowledge its a religious belief. From there its easy to say that 'well do you believe in the 1st amendment' and note that establishment of religion is forbidden. Anti abortion laws have to be grounded in reality and from there its harder to argue that fetuses are persons.
The bible also gives a magic abortion potion recipe that only works if the woman cheated, so it's pretty rich to say that God disapproves.
Plus, Jesus didn't even mention abortion once. He ordered his followers to feed the poor, but now they fight against feeding the poor and fight for causes Jesus never talked about.
I am beginning to think that true Christians are communists.
Where does the Bible say life begins at first breath? I know that is says this, "13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb." Psalm 139:13 NIV.
If I were to argue on premises, then I would start with a higher premise: Why is murder illegal? If it is my religious belief that murder is wrong, then by your argument doesn't that make homicide laws a violation of the 1st Amendment and thus unconstitutional?
On a religious basis murder is legal anyway. There's not a lot of real morality in the bible without serious cherry picking. The slaughter of Jericho, for instance where everyone, even children were slaughtered. At the end of the day law is always determined by human judgement: either through discourse directly or vigorous cherry picking of contradictory statements in holy scripture.
As to life at first breath there's Genesis 2, Adam became alive at first breath. Then as Zombiepirate noted the prescription for unfaithfulness (numbers 5) is to drink a potion that causes miscarriage, indicating that even if the bible considers a fetus to be a person, it has no problem executing them for the crimes of the mother.
Do we pay doctors for their legal acumen now?
This WHO article mentions this and cites the study
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
Those people are NOT pro-life. They're anti-abortion. It would be much better to use the correct term instead of pandering to the idea that it is about saving lives.
And conservatives laughing.
And when good faith legislators tried to make it easier for doctors to give care religious groups lobbied to block the fixes.
I am pro-life in general, but that is a good point.
Pro life is not the right term. It's much better to say you're anti abortion than to pretend it's about saving lives.
Not even that since it doesn’t really prevent abortion or pregnancy in general. It’s just anti-choice. Or anti-woman.
Not really. If I was anti abortion I wouldn't be proponent of it in most cases. You are making shit up.
The only assumption he's making is that, if you refer to yourself as "pro-life", you mean what everyone else in America who calls themselves "pro-life" means. It's a reasonable assumption, I mean, that's the way words work.
I think you all need a new name for yourselves. It sounds absurd at this point
What do you mean? I am not a member of any group, and I don't know how is being pro life absurd. In fact I don't understand how being opposed to killing a baby that is a month or two away from being born without valid reason (or any other reason that is non-threatening to woman's mental or physical health after certain point of pregnancy) is that extreme.
The name “pro-life” is absurd. Too far from reality
I get it's risky and money is needed to survive, and prison is bad, and all, but it seems a bit hypocritical for doctors to violate their modern day version of the Hippocratic Oath.
Especially the part where it says:
That's a place where life-saving decisions should always transcend law, and there should be a law (since we can't go on gentleman's agreements anymore) that says as much to cut out this partisan horse shit that vacillates and trends downward every year.
Can't believe it's 2024 and our big accomplishment is that America figured out how to politicize the human body, and the uterus in particular.
When they can is the key phrase. When the law says you can't it's no longer a doctors problem. This is 100% on the stupid politics.
They rationalize it by saying that they can't help anyone if they are sent to jail. It is partly true so I don't think we should blame the doctors here.
It's still malpractice. Doesn't matter if it's illegal.
Which is why we're also seeing entire maternity wards shut down. Doctors can't provide care without risking being jailed or being sued for malpractice, so they just won't practice at all.
That happened to a nearby hospital where I live and it's an abortion friendly state. It's because hospitals don't make any money from it compared to other departments like surgery and cancer care where they can bill Medicaid/Medicare out the ass.
Ah, we can blame capitalism for that one.
Worth pointing out that she died in August of 2022* - not long after Roe v Wade was overturned. Apparently it took a while for the hoops to be jumped through to officially call this a preventable death.
So it's very, very likely that many women have died as well.
I’m sure that was a typo and you meant 2022.
Yep you're right
Wasting lives, wasting precious resources investigating, and wasting everyone's time, while making more people miserable. Freedom, fuck yeah.
Well, what the fuck did everyone think would happen?
This is what everyone thought would happen. Both sides thought this would happen, one side wants it to happen.
this. this was the point.
Your body, their choice.
Just look at what pharma had gotten away with over the last four years. "Undergo this medical procedure or kiss your civil liberties goodbye!"
What were the civil liberties under threat for the non vaccinated?
When will a responsible politician be tried for murder? I know - never. But they should be. Because this shit is premeditated and with malicious, despicable intent.
Cause of death; infection, conservatism
"Pro-life"
I bet that's far from the only case, unfortunately.
Just the first confirmed, and it's from 2022. Her original appointment was the exact same day the local law went into effect.
It's god's will. It was just her time.
/s
Tots and pears.
Republicans "saving" lives again.
I guess that was God's plan
this is a self defense situation now
This may be the first confirmed case, but it's probably not a good idea to make it the poster case for pro-choice. Let's look at the facts:
The article says the clinic in North Carolina could have performed that procedure, but does not state why she was not brought there. Maybe her condition was too bad for the long travel? Maybe she was evacuated to the nearest hospital (a decision which does, generally, make a lot of sense) which could not have signed her away for an illegal (by Georgian law) operation outstate? Maybe it was medically and legally possible to drive/fly her there, but it was too expensive for her? Either way - it is clear that the ban on abortions in Georgia (made possible "thanks" to the Roe vs Wade overruling) is the direct reason why she could not get the treatment which could have save her life.
BUT!
The pro-life camp can easily pin this on the abortion pills, claiming that a nation-wide abortion bad would have prevented her from receiving them and therefore would have prevented her death (and the aborted twins' death. They won't forget to include that)
punch the first person to suggest this was an unintended consequence of these laws.
Working as designed.
I don't want anyone to interpret this to mean that I think it was in any way OK that this woman died, but I do want to point out what I see as an objective bias here.
According to the National Libary of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4554338/
108 women died from complications related to legal abortions during a 12 year period between 1998 and 2010, for an average of 9 per year. Where are these stories on the front page?
This is a story that is posted to elicit an emotional reaction rather than a honest attempt to examine whether there is actual recorded medical evidence that more women are dying as a result of this policy.
Edit:
Says a lot about this community.
On the one hand, you have some women dying of complications arising from an elective procedure that they chose to have, based either on medical necessity or other factors. On the other hand you have a woman in need of medical care that she wished to have, and was denied, due to her reproductive autonomy being denied, then dying as a result.
Yet you have a hard time distinguishing what makes these things different?
No, what I have a problem with is using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic and the perception that no women die from legal abortion procedures.
Also, from the report: "In 20 of the 108 cases, the abortion was performed as a result of a severe medical condition where continuation of the pregnancy threatened the woman’s life."
I point this out because another misconception is that you can always save the woman's life with an abortion if it is threatened by the pregnancy.
I don't know anyone who has edit: [ever expressed] that perception. Anecdotal I know, but I'm skeptical it's a common belief among adults of voting age.
I don't see that word, nor any language that conveys that impression in the article.
I do see this:
That seems pretty straightforward and unsensationalized to me.
It is literally the highlighted quote in the article: “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people.”
This is true as evidenced by the story, but what is also true is that abortions also kill people. So the question should be is it a net positive or a net negative? I don't see this being examined in any objective and scientific way.
This is kind of just a bad argument.
Nobody is arguing that an abortion can save a woman from all consequences.
Nobody is arguing that death is impossible as a result of abortion.
But when somebody dies because something prevented them from getting a procedure that would have been highly likely to save them, that doesn't come into conflict with the possibility of death from the procedure. It's a matter of personal choice.
Especially considering the maternal mortality rate (# of deaths per 100,000 live births) is 17.4, while the case fatality rate for abortions (# of deaths per 100,000 legal induced abortions) is just 0.45
Now imagine how much higher that rate gets when abortions are performed illegally because legislation like this stops safe abortions from being possible, without curbing demand.
Yes, people die from abortions. Yes, people die from pregnancy. Yes, this woman could have died from the abortion procedure even if she was able to get it.
But her chance of death was significantly lower if she had been capable of getting an abortion, which she was not.
^ This is the only attempt at an objective argument in this entire thread and it is not the argument presented by the OPs story, which was the point I was trying to make.
Maternal mortality includes abortions though: A maternal death is defined by the World Health Organization as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy".
Hey, I actually missed that part. (I assumed it was deaths relating to the pregnancy itself, not including additional procedures like abortions)
Still, 17.4 - 0.45 = 16.95, which is still substantially higher than the case fatality rate of abortion-related fatalities alone.
What would be scientific would be to allow women and their doctors to evaluate those risks together and make the decision without Republican lawmakers continuing to try to insert themselves in between. Sorry if that's too emotional.
I'm also quite sure there are scientific journal papers that cover this. I feel like you are expecting an awful lot from an article about a specific event on politico.
For someone who complains about others not being objective, I find it unexpected that this is what you would quote to support this assertion by you:
sorry you're being downvoted, but i support scientific data AND putting religious people in asylums.
I could care less about being downvoted, but it made me realize that even people who claim to be interested in objective truth and facts are no different than the religious people who they mock for ignoring scientific evidence for things like global warming. Everyone just wants to reaffirm what they already believe.
"Still a man, he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" -Paul Simon
I think you need to heed your own advice based on how this discussion has gone.
Okay, I normally try not to be this guy, but in this particular situation, I believe a little pedantry is called for. You mean that you couldn't care less. If you could care less, that means you do care at least a little bit, which is not the point you're trying to make.