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.”
There are a lot of good religious people out there, from many religions, who aren’t forcing their way of life on others, who spend their time trying to be loving and care for their neighbor. What precisely they’re supposed to do about the “bad apples” of religious people isn’t very clear. I can’t exactly report the Southern Baptist Church to Internal Religious Affairs.
I am not responsible for the views of other religious people. I’m responsible for my own views. I can argue with those who disagree with me, but I cannot force them to stop being controlling assholes.
Maybe, just maybe, making assumptions about people based on associations they may not actually have is a bad idea. Maybe the world is more complicated than that.