Kamala Harris claims Georgia woman died due to pro-life laws—the truth is death was caused by horrifying hospital neglect

2024 Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris is set to give a speech on Friday in Atlanta, Georgia on the topic of abortion, focusing on two women from the state who died in recent years after receiving abortions. Reports from left-wing outlets have blamed Georgia’s laws on abortion for their deaths.

The reports cited an article from ProPublica, which talks about the 2022 death of Amber Thurman. After finding out she was pregnant with twins, Thurman traveled to North Carolina to receive an abortion since Georgia had recently enacted its law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. She received abortion pills, taking one at the North Carolina clinic and then taking the second when she returned home to Georgia. 

While abortion proponents claim that abortion pills are safe and effective, serious complications can occur, including that which Thurman developed: some remains of the aborted babies were not expelled from her body, leading to a serious infection. Thurman was taken to the hospital after fainting, and a D&C, or dilation and curettage, which would have removed the remaining tissue, was not conducted until the day after her arrival. Thurman was instead given IV treatments, antibiotics, blood pressure medication, and was tested for sexually transmitted diseases and pneumonia. She arrived with a critically high white blood cell count and a dangerously low blood pressure level.

Doctors repeatedly discussed doing a D&C, but did not do so. Thurman was finally taken into the operating room at 2 pm, after arriving at Piedmont Henry Hospital at 6:51 pm the night before, and by that point doctors had to do an open abdominal surgery. Thurman died on the table.

An official state committee tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health recently concluded that Thurman’s death was "preventable," though ProPublica noted, "It is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C to Thurman."

As the Daily Wire reported, ProPublica "blamed Georgia’s abortion law that prevents an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. In Thurman’s case, there was no fetal heartbeat since the twins were already dead, thus the law wouldn’t have delayed care." 

Georgia’s abortion law states that abortions are banned if a fetal heartbeat is detected except in cases where a medical emergency exists, the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, or the pregnancy is "medically futile," meaning the unborn child has medical anomalies that would not allow the child to live outside the womb. A medical emergency is defined as "a condition in which an abortion is necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman."

The other death is that of Candi Miller, a mother of three who found out she was pregnant again in the fall of 2022. She ordered abortion pills online but her body did not expel all the fetal tissue, similar to Thurman’s case. Miller did not seek medical attention, and was found unresponsive in her bed on November 12, 2023. A medical examiner was unable to determine the manner of death. The state committee deemed Miller's death "preventable" and blamed the state's abortion laws. One member told ProPublica, "The fact that she felt that she had to make these decisions, that she didn’t have adequate choices here in Georgia, we felt that definitely influenced her case. She’s absolutely responding to this legislation."

In a thread on X, Harris blamed the deaths of the two women on "Trump Abortion Bans," stating that these "prevent doctors from providing basic medical care." Trump did not enact any abortion bans or any abortion laws of any kind. He appointed Supreme Court justices who heard cases challenging the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and overturned it. Trump has said repeatedly that Roe was bad law.

"Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again," Harris said. "Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions." The states themselves passed their own abortion laws in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned.

"There is so much at stake in this election, including restoring the freedoms that have been taken away from us. If Donald Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban, and these horrific realities will multiply," she wrote. Trump has stated that he would not sign a nationwide abortion ban, leaving the issue up to individual states.