‘This could have been prevented’: Family of woman killed when she couldn’t get abortion announces lawsuit plans

The family of Amber Thurman, the 28-year-old Georgia woman who died in 2022 after “preventable” delays in abortion care under the state’s restrictive law, plans to bring a medical malpractice claim.

After taking abortion medication, Thurman experienced a rare complication in which some fetal tissue remained in her body, landing her in the hospital where she fought for her life, vomiting, and passing in and out of consciousness.

She needed a routine procedure to remove the remaining tissue — but doctors waited 20 hours before operating, as they were tangled up in the state’s “extreme abortion laws,” Ben Crump, a lawyer for the family, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Georgia law banning most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy came into effect on July 20, 2022, just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade.

A state committee, made up of 10 doctors and other experts, recently found that Thurman’s death was “preventable,” ProPublica reported last week. The hospital’s delay in performing the dilation and curettage (D&C) had a “large” impact on her death, the committee determined.

“When I found out that this was preventable…that wound that has never healed opened wider,” Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, said while holding up a photo of her daughter at the news conference. “It is so disheartening. It is heartbreaking. It is upsetting. Every emotion that you could think that a mother could have, I have it.”

Crump argued that both federal and state laws were in play.

The attorney referred to EMTALA, a federal law that requires hospitals offering emergency services to provide stabilizing treatment to all patients. “You have a duty to