Family of Amber Thurman sues hospital for waiting 20 hours to operate after botched chemical abortion, leading to her death

The family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after developing sepsis due a botched chemical abortion, has decided to sue the hospital where she went for treatment, alleging that the doctors at the Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge did not act quickly enough to save her. They left her waiting for 20 hours to do a surgery to remove the remnants of the chemical abortion. 

Thurman had experienced a complication after taking an abortion pill that left fetal tissue inside of her body in 2022. She visited a hospital in need of a dilation and curettage, or a D&C, to take the remaining tissue out, however, doctors allegedly waited nearly a full day until performing surgery on Thurman. She died on the operating table.

In the time that the doctors spent waiting, the infection from the sepsis spread, infecting other parts of her body and her organs began to fail, per the report. Her family said that she was vomiting and turning blue prior to getting the surgery.

Vice President Kamala Harris has used the case as a talking point to champion the ability to get abortions, saying that pro-life laws in Georgia were instead to blame for her death, and not the doctors.

However, lawyer Benjamin Crump blamed the doctors, not the law for Thurman's untimely death. "Even under Georgia law, the doctors had a duty to act to save Amber," Crump said in a press conference. "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," according to Spectrum News.

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

Thurman's family said that doctors also kept them in the dark about her condition as they waited in the hospital for her to get out of surgery. Shanette Williams, Thurman's mother, said that they would have taken action if they had known the full situation.

“We would have done anything had we known, but we didn’t. We didn't have the opportunity to know," she said." It is so disheartening. It is heartbreaking. It is upsetting. Every emotion that you could think that a mother would have, I had.” Thurman left behind a 6-year-old son when she died in 2022.