Georgia axes maternal health panel after abortion deaths leak

Since June 2022, Georgia has prohibited all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women might not know they are pregnant, except in cases of rape, incest or when necessary to prevent “irreversible physical impairment” or death of the mother.

Amber Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, both died that same year, following rare complications involving the FDA-approved abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol prescribed from out of state.

Thurman waited 19 hours at a Georgia hospital before doctors performed a rare procedure – prohibited by the state abortion ban with few exceptions – needed to expel fetal tissue from the uterus that had not been fully cleared by the abortion pills.

By the time she was taken into surgery, Thurman had developed acute sepsis. She died on the surgery table.

Miller, a mother of three, died at home. Her family reportedly told the coroner she did not see a doctor because of the current laws in the state.

Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, the panel of experts, which includes 10 doctors, deemed her death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.

“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,” one committee member told ProPublica in September. “She’s absolutely responding to this legislation.”