Pro-choice activists warned in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health that the subsequent cascade of abortion bans would kill women. Two years after the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, we're not finding out that it didn't take long. Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, died on August 19, 2022, less than a month after Georgia passed its draconian abortion law that banned the treatment that could have saved her life. While the doctors and nurses tasked with her care did not speak to ProPublica, who first reported on this death this week, a 10-member committee set up to examine maternal mortality cases has deemed Thurman's death "preventable," and ruled she would have likely lived if doctors had used the protocols that had been in place before the Georgia law made them a felony.
But Republicans and Christian right activists don't want to take responsibility for the loss of this healthy young mother of a 6-year-old boy. Instead, they're casting blame on everyone else: the doctors in the Georgia hospital, abortion providers in North Carolina, and, though they will deny doing so, they're blaming Thurman herself. Thurman chose abortion. They're blaming her choice for her death.
