The 28-year-old medical assistant had just established a new level of stability for herself and her young son when she discovered she was pregnant with twins in 2022. After her pregnancy progressed beyond Georgia’s gestational limit, she took a road trip to North Carolina with her best friend, where she obtained abortion pills. While complications from abortion pills are rare, they do happen. In Thurman’s case, not all the pregnancy tissue was expelled from her uterus. She was later taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in a suburb of Atlanta after vomiting blood and passing out, according to ProPublica. She arrived showing signs of infection, including bleeding, pain, and falling blood pressure.
However, Georgia’s strict abortion law, which made the necessary dilation and curettage procedure a felony with few exceptions, delayed her care. Thurman suffered in a hospital bed for 20 hours before dying on the operating table.
Here’s everything to know about Georgia’s abortion ban and how it has, and will continue to, impact those in need of reproductive medical care.
Georgia’s Abortion Ban
Georgia enforces a strict abortion ban under House Bill 481, also known as the “Heartbeat Bill.” This law prohibits most abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, when cardiac activity can typically be detected in an embryo. The six-week ban often prevents individuals from accessing abortion services before they even realize they are pregnant.
Exceptions to the law are limited to cases of rape, incest (with a filed police report), or when the mother’s life is at risk—criteria that are not rooted in science and overlook the fast-moving realities of medical emergencies. Doctors’ judgment could be called into question, as any physician who violates the Georgia law faces the threat of prosecution and up to a decade in prison.
Thurman’s death could have been prevented with a D&C, a simple 15-minute procedure to empty the contents of the uterus. However, Georgia’s abortion ban made performing a D&C illegal unless it was for a “spontaneous” or “naturally occurring” miscarriage. Because Thurman had taken abortion pills, her miscarriage was deemed illegal to treat. She suffered in a hospital bed for 20 hours, developing sepsis and organ failure. By the time doctors finally treated her, it was too late.
The state’s main anti-abortion lobbyist, Will Brewer, opposed altering the law, arguing that some pregnancy complications “work themselves out” and that doctors should be required to “pause and wait this out and see how it goes.”
Despite multiple legal challenges since the law was enacted in 2019, the Georgia Supreme Court allowed the ban to remain in effect as of late 2023. This has forced many patients to seek care out of state or carry pregnancies against their will, further worsening Georgia’s maternal healthcare crisis. The state has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation, and Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.
Who Else Has Been Affected?
Thurman’s death marks the first publicly reported case of a woman dying due to delayed care under abortion bans. However, we don’t know how many other women have faced similar fates, as such cases are often obscured by secrecy, stigma, and confidentiality. Families who have lost loved ones may be reluctant to come forward due to the inevitable smears and scrutiny surrounding abortion-related deaths. Additionally, states enforcing abortion bans are not incentivized to disclose these fatalities.
While a state maternal mortality review board ruled Thurman’s death preventable, it was ProPublica’s investigation that revealed the true cause. Even Thurman’s family was unaware that her life could have been saved; the state had not informed them, and they learned the details from the ProPublica reporter.