Experts warned that abortion bans were killing people. They were right.

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It’s been a little over two years since the Supreme Court invalidated a constitutional right to abortion guaranteed by 50 years of precedent. Roe v. WadeAs a result, abortion laws have reverted to state control, leaving more than 25 million trans and nonbinary women and more people living in states that currently have abortion bans or restrictions. In July 2022, Georgia made abortion illegal after about six weeks of pregnancy — long before many people even realized they were pregnant.

According to an extensive investigation conducted by ProPublicaThe law could have proven fatal for 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, who died from complications following a medication abortion because she could not access abortion care in her home state of Georgia. ProPublica reports that the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Board found her death was preventable and said the delay in care had a “major” impact. Such boards exist in every state, but ProPublica reports usually appear with a delay of several years and are not published in the form of reports. ProPublica obtained findings on two cases in which the commission found the deaths were preventable, with experts telling the editorial board that the abortion ban was likely the cause.

Thurman, the mother of a 6-year-old son, had already tried to get a surgical abortion in North Carolina, planning to drive four hours to a clinic with a friend. Stuck in traffic, Thurman missed her appointment. Because so many women from other states were also dealing with the restrictive new laws, the clinic was reportedly booked that day and could not reschedule.

Since her pregnancy was still at the term that would allow for a medical abortion, ProPublica reports that the clinic offered her an abortion pill, which is considered extremely safe and effective. She received advice and instructions from the clinic, which prescribed the medication. Although it is an extremely rare event, Thurman reportedly experienced complications that led to an infection. According to the report, she checked herself into a nearby hospital, where medical tests indicated that she was experiencing an incomplete abortion, which would require further medical intervention.

According to ProPublicaDoctors initially refused to perform a D&C (dilation and curettage) on her, a routine and safe procedure for both abortions and miscarriages, to completely remove any remaining fetal tissue. When she was finally taken to the operating room, about 20 hours later, her condition had deteriorated so much that doctors began performing a hysterectomy after the D&C. Thurman died on the operating table.

This week, ProPublica also released a report on the death of Candi Miller, another woman seeking abortion care in Georgia. Maternal health experts who reviewed the case for the state commission also found her death could have been prevented. Several of those experts, speaking to ProPublica anonymously stated that this was a result of the abortion ban in Georgia.

Despite the state commission’s finding that Thurman’s death was preventable, the Trump campaign has already argued that nothing in Georgia law prevented the D&C from being issued sooner. “President Trump has always supported the exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother that Georgia law provides,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement to the AP. “Given these exceptions, it is unclear why doctors did not act quickly to protect Amber Thurman’s life.” The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Project, a document that Democrats are describing as a guide for a potential second Trump term, calls for additional regulation of abortion pills — ultimately, Project 2025 calls on the FDA to revoke its approval of the drugs altogether.

“This young mother should have been alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement about Thurman’s death. “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, being turned away from emergency rooms, losing the ability to have children. Victims of rape and incest are being told they can’t make decisions about what happens to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”

In an online rally hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Harris a few days after ProPublicaAfter the report was released, Shanette Thurman, Amber’s mother, spoke publicly for the first time about her daughter’s death, along with her two other daughters. “People all over the world need to know that this could have been prevented. Two years later, after talking to my daughters, because I was at my wits’ end,” Shanette Thurman said. “I lost hope. You look at a mother who is broken. The worst pain that a mother, a parent, can ever feel. You look at that.”

“It’s heartbreaking. This was my little sister, I’m scared, disappointed, guilty, I wish I could have helped, and we had no idea we trusted her to take care of her and they just let her die because of some stupid abortion ban that treated her like another number,” said Amber’s sister, CJ.

No wonder people are dying because of abortion bans. Before Roe was repealed, with advocates warning that abortion bans could prove deadly – ​​something we know from states that have tried to ban abortion before RoeThe fall has reinforced more. This accounts for many factors, including attempts at unsafe illegal abortions, to the extremely rare complication Thurman experienced. While many decry the rise in self-administered abortions after Roe has been repealed, research shows they are not inherently dangerous.

Studies have shown that when using the abortion pill to self-administer an abortion, 97.7% of people did not require any follow-up care, and 99.8% of people did not experience any side effects. Because of the “increasing use of safe and effective medications, including mifepristone in combination with misoprostol and misoprostol alone,” one study found that with the medications in the abortion pill, “the use of traumatic and unsafe methods is rare.” ProPublica Of the nearly 6 million American women who have taken mifepristone since 2000, only 32 deaths have reportedly been reported to the FDA as of 2022, regardless of whether the drug was the cause of the death.

Many women in crisis, however, have been denied care because of the abortion ban. An Associated Press report found that the number of pregnant women in crisis who were denied emergency room admission in the U.S. rose sharply in 2022 after Roe v. Wade was repealed, leaving them to miscarry in public restrooms, wait for treatment in their cars or be told by doctors to seek care elsewhere. Their investigation also found that women developed infections or lost parts of their reproductive systems after hospitals in states where abortion is banned delayed emergency abortions.

At this year’s Democratic National Convention, Amanda Zurawski took the stage to share her story of suffering a miscarriage at 18 weeks. Because of new laws restricting abortion in Texas, she says, doctors delayed providing care, putting her future fertility at risk. Many other women have shared their stories on TikTok, after former Trump White House chief of staff John McEntee argued that women are “bleeding out” because of abortion bans.

In November, residents of nine states will vote on proposed constitutional amendments or other measures to protect or restore abortion rights.

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Originally published on Teen Vogue