Amber Thurman

On the evening of 18 August 2022, Amber Thurman was rushed to the Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia. The 28-year-old single mother had been experiencing cramping and bleeding for days, and was beginning to vomit blood. After losing consciousness, her boyfriend had called 9-1-1 and requested an ambulance…

Hey y'all. Before we get into the substance of today's episode, I want to take a moment to advise some listener discretion. This episode is about abortion and maternal health care in America. If that's not something you want to hear, then I get it. It's a tough subject, but this is a tough time in America, and it's something I need to talk about in this moment. You may disagree, and that's fine. Maybe sit this one out if that's the case.

At the same time, if you're one of those people who thinks "true crime" and "politics" should never, ever intersect, I hope you rethink that. As I've covered before on this podcast, crime is in and of itself political. The people who make laws are politicians, and those laws are then enforced by, you guessed it, law enforcement. "True crime" as a genre is a good way to share spooky stories and highlight the worst of humanity, and I think this episode is a prime example of the latter. But don't get it twisted: "true crime" is by no means escapism. If you look to true crime to escape your world for a second, please don't lose sight of the fact that every true crime story is a recounting of real events that happened to real people. This episode is no different, and will feature a not-so-subtle political message.

So with all that being said, listener discretion is advised.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided one of its landmark cases, Roe v. Wade. In it, the court established a woman's constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. The case arose after a woman named Norma McCorvey, under the pseudonym Jane Roe, challenged abortions laws in the state of Texas, which had criminalized the procedure except in life-saving procedures. The case went all the way through the court system up to the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 in McCorvey - or Roe's - favor in 1973.

This ruling declared the Texas law outlawing abortions illegal, claiming it violated the right to privacy for U.S. citizens, protected under the 14th Amendment. But afterward, this ruling set up a precarious legal framework, which allowed abortions throughout the United States under certain guidelines. But this framework was never enshrined into law, becoming something that many of us began to take for granted as an assurance... with those of us that believed in a woman's right to choose just hoping that the Supreme Court wouldn't overrule itself, citing its prior adherence to precedent to keep the Roe v. Wade decision as a mandate.

Sadly, that was not the case.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its decision from nearly half-a-century prior, deciding to take on a lawsuit from the state of Mississippi which was challenging Roe v. Wade because of a state law they'd put into place, outlawing abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, overturned Roe v. Wade, agreeing with Mississippi that it could put its own law into effect, criminalizing abortions after fifteen weeks. This ruling also allowed each state to begin implementing their own abortion policies, ensuring that there would be no uniform standard between all fifty states. This also ensured that many states would begin to enact more restrictive laws than Mississippi, especially the deep red states, which had already made it clear that they planned to enact sweeping abortion bans.

In the time since this decision was announced, several states have followed through with their stated plans. This includes states where abortion is almost entirely banned, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Some, such as Texas and Idaho, have even tried to criminalize crossing state lines to seek an abortion, something that violates so many constitutional rights and interstate commerce laws that I don't know where to begin. Others like Indiana, North Dakota, and Georgia, have enacted abortion bans after six weeks of pregnancy, a time period in which many don't even realize they're pregnant.

It is in the last of these states I mentioned, Georgia, that today's episode takes place, and puts our focus where it should be: on a woman's right to choose.

This is the story of Amber Thurman.

Amber Nicole Thurman, born on September 16th, 1993, grew up in Georgia, where she would live for her entire life.

By 2022, Amber was the mother of a six-year-old son, who she raised as a single parent. She worked as a medical assistant, but had plans to attend nursing school so that she could continue to take care of people. At the time this story unfolds, she had just recently moved out of her family's home into her own apartment, which was in a gated complex that had a pool, according to reporting by ProPublica (who are the primary source for today's episode). At the time, Amber also had a boyfriend.

In the summer of 2022, 28-year-old Amber Thurman seemed to have some real momentum in her life. Things were looking up, and she had a plan for how the next several years were going to play out. So when she discovered she was pregnant, with twins no less, those plans suddenly looked precarious.

[Having two children at once is incredibly tough, not just physically (having to carry the twins to term) but emotionally and mentally. I struggled enough dropping my own career to take care of my daughter, and with another child on the way, I'm equally terrified. I can't even imagine the prospect of twins while raising another child as a single parent.]

So early in the pregnancy, Amber decided to terminate it before it was too far along... a choice that was hers and hers alone to make. As reported by ProPublica, Amber wanted to have this abortion in Georgia so that she could remain close to home, and receive any necessary aftercare if necessary. But at the time, with Roe v. Wade having been recently overturned, she wasn't sure if that was a realistic possibility.

In 2019, back when Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, had signed a bill into law. This bill had been part of a nationwide attempt by Republican lawmakers to impose tough abortion restrictions throughout their states, all of them equally hoping that their bill would be the one to get challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where then-President Donald Trump had recently appointed two new judges, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh (who replaced Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy in 2017 and 2018, respectively). A third Trump appointee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, would replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, giving the Conservative-appointed judges on the court a 6-3 majority... and giving Republican politicians the belief that if an abortion-related case came across their desk, they'd overturn Roe v. Wade and send abortion back to the states, where it could then be banned.

So back in 2019, Georgia governor Brian Kemp had signed into law his own version of this bill, called the "Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act" or "LIFE Act" (undoubtedly a name they pigeon-holed into an acronym). This act would ban all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with six weeks being the first time that fetal cardiac activity could be detected, give or take, hence the popular framing of this by Conservatives as a "heartbeat bill."

As I mentioned, this took place in 2019, when Roe v. Wade was still in effect, making Governor Brian Kemp just one of several Republican governors who chose to virtue signal how "pro life" he was by signing legislation that he knew wouldn't be enacted for months, maybe even years.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, Georgia's six-week abortion ban went into effect almost immediately. It was first challenged in court, but a federal appeals court overruled an injunction against it on July 20th, 2022, allowing it to go into immediate effect. As part of this law, if any doctors were found to have violated it , they would lose their ability to practice medicine and could face up to a decade in prison.

This came just weeks before Amber Thurman made a difficult choice.

After discovering that she was pregnant, Amber Thurman had decided that she wanted to terminate the pregnancy. But she wanted to have the procedure done in Georgia, close to home, in case she experienced any difficulties. She wanted to be around for her son. At the same time, Georgia's government was in the midst of determining whether or not it could fully outlaw abortion - which it did, at around the same time Amber had come to this decision. After waiting as long as possible, she realized she couldn't wait anymore.

In her ninth week of pregnancy, in August of 2022, Amber Thurman traveled out-of-state to North Carolina where abortion was still legal. There, she had made an appointment to have the surgical procedure done, but traffic prevented her from getting there on time. As a result, her scheduled appointment couldn't be held, because an influx of women from out-of-state had similarly been traveling to North Carolina to get the procedure done themselves.

Despite missing her appointment, Amber was told that she could have a chemical abortion. It was riskier, but easier, and would allow her to terminate the pregnancy now - while it was still earlier - as opposed to having to reschedule and try again later, after the fetus had grown some more. So at the clinic, she received the abortion pill mifepristone, and was given a second pill to take a day later, misoprostal. She took that pill as-instructed.

The symptoms started a day later, in the form of cramps. Amber had been expecting those and assumed it was normal. But in the days that followed, the cramps became worse and worse, and she began to experience an excessive amount of bleeding.

On the evening of August 18th, 2022, the symptoms progressed. Amber began vomitting blood and then passed out at home, causing her boyfriend to call 9-1-1 and request an ambulance.

Amber arrived at the Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia a short time later, and was admitted at 6:51 P.M. Doctors quickly diagnosed her with an infection, which was beginning to worsen into sepsis, a full-body infection where white blood cells begin multiplying rapidly and blood pressure drops to a dangerous level. As reported by ProPublica, doctors noted that Amber's stomach was tender to the touch, and when she got up to use the bathroom, she fainted yet again, hitting her head in the process. Doctors also noted a foul odor during a pelvic exam.

After telling doctors that she'd received had a chemical abortion, they determined that she needed a procedure performed known as dilation and curettage (D&C). This procedure would remove the remaining fetal tissue in her body, helping get rid of the rapidly-deteriorating infection that was now threatening Amber's life. It turns out that after going through the chemical abortion, Amber's body had ejected most of the fetal tissue, but not all of it. An ultrasound confirmed that there was still additional tissue in her uterus, which was causing her to now to into septic shock.

While doctors and nurses knew that Amber needed a D&C performed, Georgia's abortion law prevented them from taking place except in cases where the mother's life was in imminent danger. At the time, that wasn't happening... yet. But would as the infection worsened and hours passed.

Doctors had diagnosed Amber Thurman with sepsis as early as 9:38 P.M. on August 18th, but would wait before performing the D&C, knowing that she'd recently had a chemical abortion. They worried that if they performed the D&C, then they too would have been taking part in an abortion and could be prosecuted as a result. So they started Amber on antibiotics and refrained from removing any fetal tissue from her uterus.

Early the following morning, August 19th, Amber was diagnosed with "acute severe sepsis," and at 5:14 A.M., was reported to be breathing rapidly and experiencing heavy blood loss. At 6:45, she was taken into intensive care, and at 7:14, as reported by ProPublica, doctors again discussed initiating a D&C to get rid of the fetal tissue and hopefully stop the infection. But two hours later, Amber's internal organs began to fail.

Roughly twenty hours after arriving at the hospital, at 2:00 PM on August 19th, the D&C was finally performed on Amber Thurman. But at that point, her organs had already gone into failure, and she died on the operating table, her heart finally giving in during surgery. Her death certificate would list septic shock and "retained products of conception" as her cause of death, the latter of which was so rare that it hadn't been cited in Georgia's death records in over a decade. Due in no small part to modern medicine and the ability for women to easily seek out medical care due to complications that arose during or after pregnancy... something that was no longer guaranteed.

Amber Thurman was one of the first documented cases of abortion-related deaths in America following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022... a ruling that had a direct impact on Amber Thurman's life and certaintly led to her death.

That ruling, which came about due to the Conservative majority on the Court, allowed Georgia's pre-existing LIFE Act from 2019 to go into effect, making it so Amber had to seek abortion care out of state. Then, when complications arose, she went to a hospital near her home in Georgia, but wasn't able to receive the necessary care because she'd already gone through an abortion. Instead, she was left to suffer from a debilitating infection for nearly an entire day after being admitted, a time period of roughly twenty hours, and unnecessarily died as a result. She left behind her friends and family, including her six-year-old son, who now has to wade through life without his biggest advocate, his mother.

Amber Thurman's death, which flew under the radar in 2022, has become a major news story in the U.S. because of ProPublica's reporting on it in recent months. And as a result, it's brought into focus these so-called "heartbeat bills," which have been passed by Republican politicians in an effort to save "babies," even though fetuses at six weeks of development in no way look like a baby... but that's really beside the point. In no uncertain terms, Georgia's "heartbeat bill" led to Amber's death, and it's not like this is something the state's politicians hadn't considered or heard of.

Back in 2019, during one of the public hearings concerning Georgia's abortion bill, Dr. Melissa Kottke had warned lawmakers that doctors would refrain from giving patients potentially life-saving care because they'd be concerned about prosecution, telling them:

"They would feel the need to wait for higher blood pressure, wait for a higher fever - really got to justify this one - bleed a little bit more."

And in this specific case, that's exactly what happened. Instead of immediately giving Amber Thurman a D&C to stop the infection that ultimately killed her, doctors waffled and waited for the condition to become critical, acting only when it was already too late.

A Conservative publication, the Washington Examiner, would attempt to muddy the waters around Amber's death, claiming that it was the abortion pills themselves that had killed Amber Thurman. But in their shoddy article, published on September 20th, 2024, they instead blame confusion of the state's anti-abortion law rather than the law itself for Amber's death, which seems to be like trying to split a hair that doesn't need splitting. It doesn't matter if doctors chose not to save Amber Thurman's life because of the law itself or potential interpretations of the horribly-written and vague law... the end result was the exact same fucking thing.

The medical team and officials responsible for the decision not to immediately perform the D&C on Amber Thurman have not gone on the record, but her story has been shared by multiple publications, including ProPublica, whose award-worthy piece was published just months ago. In the time since, the story has become a subject of debate between presidential candidates, and the article itself explores how Georgia's own maternal mortality review committee concluded that there was a "good chance" that Amber's death could have been prevented if doctors had simply performed the D&C sooner. It also highlighted how difficult to interpret many of these restrictive state abortion bans are, based entirely on how they're written.

The following passage is taken directly from the ProPublica piece, which I'll link in the show notes and would encourage you all check out, but centers primarily on the Georgia state law outlawing abortion:

"It prohibits doctors from using any instrument 'with the purpose of terminating a pregnancy.' While removing fetal tissue is not terminating a pregnancy, medically speaking, the law only specifics it's not considered an abortion to remove 'a dead unborn child' that resulted from 'spontaneous abortion' defined as 'naturally-occurring' from a miscarriage or a stillbirth.

"Thurman had told doctors her miscarriage was not spontaneous - it was the result of taking pills to terminate her pregnancy.

"There is also an exception, included in most bans, to allow abortions 'necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.' There is no standard protocol for how providers should interpret such language, doctors said. How can they be sure a jury with no medical experience would agree that intervening was 'necessary'?

"ProPublica asked the governor's office on Friday to respond to cases of denied care... and where its exceptions were adequate. Spokesperson Garrison Douglas said they were clear and gave doctors the power to act in medical emergencies. He returned to the state's previous argument, describing ProPublica's reporting as a 'fear-mongering campaign.'

"Republican officials across the country have largely rejected calls to provide guidance.

"When legislators have tried, anti-abortion groups have blocked them."

Try as they might to distance themselves from Amber's death, the politicians that enacted the restrictive and ironically-named LIFE Act back in 2019, are directly responsible for Amber Thurman's death in 2022. And sadly, they're not the only ones with blood on their hands.

As I mentioned at the top of the episode, similar bills were passed all over the United States, almost entirely in red states, governed by GOP politicians, who have ran on restricting abortion for decades. Making this not a matter of opinion by me or anyone, but a stated objective of the Republican party (and its Evangelical donors) for longer than I've been alive.

Texas, my new home, has begun to enforce new and old bans, including laws that predated the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, as well as more recent laws. This includes a new law passed in August of 2022, which banned almost all abortions. The exception lies in the vague terminology of 'whenever the mother's life is in danger'... but as this episode has shown, there's no clear terminology to define where that is. Is it when the infection begins? Or when the mother begins to experience organ failure? And even then, if it's determined that the mother's life was not in adequate danger, the doctor that performed the procedure could risk up to 99 years in prison for performing that politicians determined was an "illegal" abortion.

Texas also made headlines when, in 2021, they passed a law empowering private citizens to sue anyone who performed or helped facilitate an abortion, beginning a litigious bountry program that pits Texans against one another.

Other states like Idaho have passed similar laws, with the repeal of Roe v. Wade triggering a law passed by the state's government in 2020, which outlawed abortion except in proven cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother. That danger, too, is vague and not easily-determined, and the rape and incest exceptions must also be accompanied by a police report... or else they're not valid within the state. This has led to most of Idaho's OBGYNs and maternal health care providers leaving the state, turning it into a desert for maternal health care. Another one of the many tragic side effects for these kinds of shortsighted laws.

Many other states face similar restrictive laws, imposing felony charges on doctors who perform abortions, even those who would dare to perform abortions on underage girls that were raped by family members. Pregnancies that everyone with a functioning soul would know she shouldn't have to take to term.

Sadly, this episode could be focused on many other women who have experienced similar difficulties in obtaining care during or after a pregnancy. Some of whom have experienced permanent, life-altering changes to their health or reproductive system. Others have died.

ProPublica followed up their reporting on Amber Thurman's death by sharing the story of 41-year-old Candi Miller, a mother of two who became pregnant and decided to navigate abortion on her own in 2022. Like Amber Thurman, Candi Miller lived in Georgia, and was afraid of trying to get her abortion performed at a medical clinic because of the state's laws. Unlike Amber Thurman, though, Candi Miller had preexisting conditions that made a pregnancy at her age an impossibility; this included diagnoses for lupus, diabetes, and hypertension. So she ordered abortion pills online and took them at her home, slowly languishing until she was found dead in bed, laying next to her three-year-old daughter.

Like Amber Thurman, Candi Miller had feared the prospect of seeking help at a hospital in Georgia. But she'd suffered the same fate, failing to expel all of the fetal tissue in her system, and would have required a D&C to save her life.

Then there's the case of Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old mother from Texas who was pregnant with her second child in 2021. This was a pregnancy she wanted to keep, as she and her husband were excited at the prospect of growing their family. But at just 17 weeks, the head of the fetus began pressing against her cervix, signalling a miscarriage. She'd gone to the hospital due to the complications, but doctors had to wait until there was no heartbeat before they could help her, by either speeding up the delivery or emptying her uterus. For over forty hours, she had to suffer as her uterus remained exposed to bacteria. Three days after delivering her stillborn baby, Josseli Barnica died of an infection.

In an article published by the Associated Press back in August of 2024, it reported that over 100 pregnant women who had sought help from emergency rooms throughout America had been "turned away or negligently treated since 2022," the same year that Roe v. Wade was overturned. In that article, they gave several specific examples, ranging from women who had suffered from ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages, who were left to fend for themselves after seeking care in emergency rooms.

That article also highlighted how the new regressive policies enacted by many red states have not only led to the closure of maternal health clinics and a mass exodus of OB-GYNs, making them void of much-needed health care for pregnant women, but how the states without those regressive policies are now destinations. As a result, they are slowly-but-surely getting overwhelmed, unable to keep up with the flow of women from out-of-state seeking not only preventative care but maternal care. This isn't just women that are seeking abortions, for the record, this includes women that need simple doctors appointments to check in on the health of their baby... highlighting how these "heartbeat bills" are doing absolutely fucking nothing to ensure the health of unborn babies. In fact, evidence is showing that they're having the opposite effect.

As stated by Dara Kass, an emergency medicine doctor and former U.S. Health and Human Services official, who was quoted in the AP article:

"It is increasingly less safe to be pregnant and seeking emergency care in an emergency department."

Before being wheeled back to surgery on August 19th, 2022, Amber Thurman had asked her mother to do one thing for her.

"Promise me you'll take care of my son."

Despite all of the hand-wringing from those who seek to protect unborn children, outlawing abortion does nothing but put women like Amber Thurman in jeopardy. And by extension, their own children. At the time of her death, Amber was a healthy, vibrant 28-year-old single mother, whose six-year-old son was left without a mother following Amber's preventable loss.

As we close out this episode, I'd like to remind all of you that you can have an impact on the world around you. You can speak up. You can become or remain an advocate for women, even if you're not one yourself. And more importantly, if you live in America, you can vote.

Before some of you start to groan and mumble about your vote not mattering, I'd just like to remind you about one thing: if your vote didn't matter, the powers that be wouldn't be trying so fucking hard to convince you it didn't. Or, at least, they wouldn't be trying to steal that Constitutional right from you. So if you support women and their access to health care - not just abortion access or contraceptives, but simple health care - prove it. Go out and vote like their lives depend on it, because as this episode has tried to highlight, they do.

Until this nation stops valuing hypothetical children more than living women, then Amber Thurman's story - and countless others just like it - will remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on November 2nd, 2024

Music Credits

Original music created by Micheal Whelan

Outro/theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves

Sources and Other Reading

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New York Times. (2024). Texas abortion medical records investigation. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/us/texas-abortion-medical-records.html
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USA Today. (2024). Amber Thurman case discussed at Trump town hall. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/10/16/trump-town-hall-fox-amber-thurman-abortion-ban/75702067007/
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