‘Women are dying’: New abortion row erupts in the United States

A fresh row has erupted over abortion policy in the United States, with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris accusing her opponent, Republican Donald Trump, of being responsible for women “dying”.

This latest development in America’s abortion debate was sparked by a story on the investigative news site ProPublica. The publication identified two women who had died because “they couldn’t access legal abortions and medical care” after the United States’ Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade.

That landmark 1973 decision, which made abortion legal until the point of foetal viability (at about 24 weeks of pregnancy), had underpinned abortion rights in the US for almost 50 years. In 2022 the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which is in place because of three justices appointed by Mr Trump, nullified it.

As a consequence, strict abortion bans have been imposed across much of the country, with some states governed by the Republicans barring the practice from as little as six weeks into pregnancy, when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant.

‘It was too late’: Woman’s horrific death

ProPublica’s story focused on a woman named Amber Nicole Thurman, who lived in Atlanta, Georgia. The state, whose Governor Brian Kemp is a conservative Republican, is among those which now ban abortion from six weeks onwards.

Because of that ban, Ms Thurman had to travel interstate, to North Carolina, to obtain abortion pills. After returning home, she suffered a rare and dangerous complication: her body had failed to expel all of the foetal tissue.

When she vomited blood and passed out, Ms Thurman’s partner called emergency services. She ended up at a hospital in Georgia requiring what would normally be a routine procedure, called a dilation and curettage, to clear the material from her uterus.

But Georgia had made the procedure a felony-level crime, punishable by up to a decade in jail for any doctor who performed it.

“Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed, worried about what would happen to her six-year-old son,” ProPublica reported.

“Doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail.

“It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late.”

Even at the point when Ms Thurman was “breathing rapidly” and “at risk of bleeding out”, her doctors merely increased her antibiotics.

“Instead of performing the newly criminalised procedure, they continued to gather information and dispense medicine,” reported ProPublica.

Ms Thurman was admitted to the hospital at 6.51pm. She wasn’t taken to an operating theatre until 2pm the next day.

Her last words, spoken to her mother, were: “Promise me you’ll take care of my son.” She was already the mother of a six-year-old boy.

Her heart stopped during the surgery.

Asked for comment on Ms Thurman’s case, and that of another woman who had died due to lack of medical care, Mr Kemp’s office dismissed ProPublica’s reporting as a “fearmongering campaign”.

Ms Thurman leaves behind a six-year-old son, who will now grow up without his mother.

A government committee has since concluded that her death was “preventable”, should not have happened, and that the delay in performing her D&C operation played a “large” role.

“Committees like the one in Georgia, set up in each state, often operate with a two-year lag behind the cases they examine, meaning that experts are only now beginning to delve into deaths that took place after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion,” ProPublica explained.

Abortion is a lightning rod issue in the presidential campaign, with Mr Trump’s role in facilitating the end of Roe vs Wade a frequent point of criticism among Democrats.

During his first term in the White House, Mr Trump appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

That shifted the balance of the court, decisively. All three voted to overturn Roe.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/women-are-dying-new-abor...

This is beyond repugnant. Doctors were forced to decide between saving a woman's life or possibly end up being put in prison for up to ten years for doing so through a procedure Governor Kemp has deemed to be a felony-level crime. Now the woman is dead and a six year-old child has lost his mother.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Sep 18^th, 2024 at 8:08pm:

You are out of your seething mind.

Frank wrote on Sep 18^th, 2024 at 8:10pm:


No, you are. Only someone devoid of humanity would say it's right to deny an abortion to a young girl who has been raped so she doesn't have to carry her rapist's baby when she is a child herself. Or when a woman's life is in danger and doctors are threatened with ten years in prison if they carry out a procedure that would save her life. YOU are out of your seething mind.

I really have a prob with Trump as the President but to blame him because the Supreme Court's decision is kinda lame. There's so much more to aim at that is him (not at all suggesting aiming firearms at him)..

Setanta wrote on Sep 18^th, 2024 at 8:54pm:


Can introduce new legislation.

Setanta wrote on Sep 18^th, 2024 at 9:07pm:


I didn’t realise that saving lives was regressive. My mistake! 

Armchair_Politician wrote on Sep 18^th, 2024 at 9:11pm:


The S court is regressive. You'll have to wait for a less regressive S Court. No other way around it. It's just a fact. What's made you all emotional these days anyway? I remember you differently in the past here.