979

A Georgia woman has died after an abortion ban delayed lifesaving care (www.motherjones.com)

submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.”

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] TheHarpyEagle@pawb.social 124 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] ramirezmike@programming.dev 22 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[-] ramirezmike@programming.dev 4 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago

Fetus is life, but contained within another life. Therefore, container's life takes precedence.

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[-] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

The Test for an Unfaithful Wife (Numbers 5)

11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[c] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.

16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[e] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

[-] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 days ago

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.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 8 points 4 days ago

Do we pay doctors for their legal acumen now?

This WHO article mentions this and cites the study

Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion

[-] baru@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I've seen pro-life folks

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.

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

And conservatives laughing.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago

Doctors are erring on the side of caution to avoid potential lawsuits and even jail time

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:

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

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.

[-] Entertainmeonly 9 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 days ago

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.

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.

[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

It's still malpractice. Doesn't matter if it's illegal.

[-] kofe@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

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.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 66 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[-] ulkesh@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

I’m sure that was a typo and you meant 2022.

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Yep you're right

[-] derpgon@programming.dev 3 points 4 days ago

Wasting lives, wasting precious resources investigating, and wasting everyone's time, while making more people miserable. Freedom, fuck yeah.

[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 42 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Well, what the fuck did everyone think would happen?

[-] barsquid@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago

This is what everyone thought would happen. Both sides thought this would happen, one side wants it to happen.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

this. this was the point.

[-] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 24 points 4 days ago

Cause of death; infection, conservatism

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 27 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 22 points 4 days ago

"Pro-life"

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 days ago

I bet that's far from the only case, unfortunately.

[-] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

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:

She was pregnant with twins, and wanted an abortion.
She couldn't legally do it in her home state Georgia, so she had to travel to North Carolina and get abortion pills there.
A few days later, when she was already back home, she started to suffer from severe complications.
The doctors in Georgia could not legally perform the procedure that could have saved her life - a surgical removal of what remained of the fetus - because it was to close to abortion.

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)

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 14 points 4 days ago

It's god's will. It was just her time.

[-] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

Tots and pears.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

punch the first person to suggest this was an unintended consequence of these laws.

[-] dubious@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

this is a self defense situation now

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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:

Post citing scientific data -11.
"Religious people should be locked in asylums" +10.

Says a lot about this community.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 days ago

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?

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

and the perception that no women die from legal abortion procedures.

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.

using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic

I don't see that word, nor any language that conveys that impression in the article.

I do see this:

At least two women in Georgia died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state, ProPublica has found. This is one of their stories.

That seems pretty straightforward and unsensationalized to me.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[-] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 6 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

^ 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".

[-] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

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.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I don’t see this being examined in any objective and scientific way.

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.

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.”

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:

using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic

[-] dubious@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

sorry you're being downvoted, but i support scientific data AND putting religious people in asylums.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

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

[-] Ilovemyirishtemper@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

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.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

“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.

[-] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

Working as designed.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024

979 points (100.0% liked)

News

22903 readers

2960 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

rjc@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

Blackbeard@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

jeffw@lemmy.world