Statement from URGE on Preventable Deaths Related to Georgia’s Six-Week Abortion Ban

In July 2022, the state of Georgia banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and made the previously routine, and lifesaving, act of performing a dilation and curettage, or D&C, a felony in all but a few circumstances. The following month, a 28-year-old Black woman and mother, Amber Nicole Thurman, died after seeking an abortion and being denied life-saving care. Today, ProPublica reported that Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee recently concluded that there is a “good chance” providing a D&C earlier could have prevented Thurman’s death – making her the first confirmed death of someone denied abortion care after the Supreme Court opened the door for abortion bans in the Dobbs decision.

In response to the reporting on Thurman’s preventable death, Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director of URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, said:
“Amber Nicole Thurman should still be alive today and caring for her son. Her heartbreaking story illustrates the very real consequences that pregnant people and their families face when state lawmakers ban abortion. Georgia’s six-week abortion ban meant that Amber had to travel to a different state to access abortion care when she needed it. When she experienced a rare complication, her doctors were hamstrung by Georgia’s vaguely written state law, and their hesitation and indecision likely cost her her life. 

“Since the Supreme Court opened the door for extreme abortion bans in the Dobbs decision, too many people – in Georgia and other states across the country – have suffered. 

“When I had a miscarriage earlier this year, I needed lifesaving reproductive care – the very care that is unavailable to too many people across this country because of abortion bans. We have to put pregnant people back in charge of our own medical decisions and stop politicians from making these decisions for us. We call on the Georgia state legislature to pass the Reproductive Freedom Act and for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to make abortion legal and accessible for all communities across the U.S. Lawmakers could stop this if they really wanted to – no one else has to lose their life.”

Shante Wolfe, URGE’s Southeastern States Field Director said:
“Amber Nicole Thurman died because of the barriers put in place by Georgia’s six-week abortion ban – period. This dangerous ban puts the lives of all pregnant people in Georgia at risk and drives OB-GYNs out of state, further decreasing critical medical care across our state. 

“This situation is yet another example of how abortion restrictions and criminalization disproportionately affect Black women, as well as Indigenous communities, people of color, people who live in rural areas, low-income people, LGBTQIA+ people, young people, and immigrants. 

“We are going to continue to fight these bans and organize our people until they are gone. It was encouraging to see that several impacted folks testified during today’s Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Field Hearing on Georgia’s abortion ban – and I encourage all Georgians to keep sharing their stories about the real-world impacts of this dangerous law.”