Hospital that delayed emergency abortion bears blame for Georgia woman’s death, family’s lawyer claims

The family of a Georgia woman who died after undergoing a medication abortion – and was subsequently cited by Democrats as a tragic example of red states’ “restrictive” abortion laws – is blaming the hospital for the woman’s death and readying a lawsuit, according to their attorney. 

Amber Thurman, 28, died in 2022 after experiencing complications from taking abortion pills. She traveled to the Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge to receive a dilation and curettage procedure to remove the remaining tissue from the terminated pregnancy, but hospital staff allegedly waited about 20 hours before performing the procedure. 

High-profile civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump will represent the family in their upcoming case against the hospital. Crump pinned blame for Thurman’s death on the hospital and not Georgia’s recent law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, Spectrum News reported. 

“Even under Georgia law, the doctors had a duty to act to save Amber,” Crump said last week. “She had taken the abortion pills and there were tissues left. There was no viable fetus or anything that would have prevented them from saving her life while she suffered.”

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Attorney Ben Crump is representing the family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died from complications from a medical abortion. (Robin L Marshall/Getty Images)

“You have a duty to stabilize her and then give her the option to go to another hospital facility,” Crump said. “But you cannot let her suffer and die on your hospital bed when the death is preventable.”

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Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the LIFE Act into law in 2019, but it did not take effect until 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which effectively ended the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion. 

Gov. Brian Kemp, who signed Georgia’s “heartbeat law” into effect, is seen here delivering his State of the State speech on Jan. 11, 2024 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Thurman’s death in August 2022 has since become the first known abortion death since the Supreme Court’s decision, with Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, citing her death as the result of “restrictive” Republican-backed abortion laws. 

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Georgia’s heartbeat law states that “no abortion shall be performed if the unborn child has a detectable human heartbeat except in the event of a medical emergency or medically futile pregnancy.” The law makes exceptions for abortions after the six-week mark, including in the event of a medical emergency or medically futile pregnancy, or a pregnancy through rape or incest when the probable gestational age of the baby is less than 20 weeks. 

ProPublica first published an article on Thurman’s death last month, blaming her death and another Georgia woman’s death, Candi Miller, on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the state’s new abortion limits. 

Harris cited Thurman’s death on Sunday during an interview on the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast.

“[Thurman] was, as described by her family, so excited and so ambitious, and she had plans. Then she found out she was pregnant, and she didn’t want to go through with her pregnancy. And she was living in Georgia, and she couldn’t receive care there because she was past six weeks. And so she ended up going to another state, and…she couldn’t get there on time. And because the other state had been so overwhelmed by all these women coming from all these southern states who couldn’t get treatment in their own state, her window for her appointment had closed and instead of having a surgical procedure, she had medication and basically went back home and then had some complications and went to the hospital because she was bleeding.”

“And they delayed 20 hours before they treated her,” Harris continued, suggesting that Georgia’s laws prevented her from receiving lifesaving care.

In a previous press release announcing Crump would represent Thurman’s family members in court, he did blame Thurman’s death on Georgia’s abortion law. 

OB-GYNS DECRY THE ‘FEARMONGERING’ ABOUT GEORGIA’S ABORTION LAWS: ‘THE LIES ARE HURTING WOMEN’

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the Philip Chosky Theatre in Pittsburgh. (Rebecca Droke/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Amber Thurman’s preventable death is a horrifying consequence of draconian abortion laws that put politics ahead of women’s lives. These lawmakers bear responsibility for creating hesitation among health care workers, who are fearful of the legal consequences when providing necessary care. Her family deserves accountability for the delays in life-saving care that cost Amber her life. We are committed to seeking justice for Amber and fighting for a country where no other family suffers such a devastating loss due to dangerous, unnecessary legal barriers,” Crump said in the press release. 

OB-GYNs have criticized the recent narrative from Democrats as a misleading story that is pushed by the media. 

“I was not surprised to see this pro-abortion media try to point the blame at Georgia’s pro-life laws, but, in fact, Georgia’s laws allow doctors to intervene to save the life of the woman,” Charlotte Lozier Institute Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Ingrid Skop recently told Fox News Digital. 

“I think the focus of the Democratic Party upon abortion as an issue is only because the American people do not understand the laws. Many times, women are hurt by abortions. It is not necessary for women to live their best life. And, of course, it’s the fearmongering and lies that have led us to this place where we are today, where people even think there would be a reason to point at the law.”​​

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Thurman’s stepfather, Elijah Warren, has called on Democrats, specifically Harris, to stop politicizing the death, saying when he sees politicians talking about Thurman’s death, it is “like a funeral happening over and over.”

“I can see [Harris] using that as the only tool in Georgia against Trump,” Warren told the New York Post this week. 

“She is going to push that; I expect it. But it’s too much. It’s kind of like a funeral happening over and over again every time I see that.”

Warren said he views Thurman’s death, which was caused by septic shock, “more as a neglect of the hospital” than the Georgia law. 

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“They should have watched over my stepdaughter … The abortion already happened. There wasn’t a heartbeat going on,” he said. “They should have just cleaned the tissue; that would have saved her life.” 

Fox News Digital reached out to Crump’s office for updates on the upcoming suit as well as to the Harris campaign but did not receive responses by publication deadline.

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