The family of a young Georgia mother who died in 2022 from delayed abortion care says Amber Thurman’s death could have been avoided in a case that has become a part of the nation’s abortion debate.

After a medication abortion, Thurman, 28, was rushed to a hospital. However, doctors waited 19 hours before performing surgery to remove the fetal tissue, according to a ProPublica story published in September. The report includes information from a private state investigation that outlines Thurman’s treatment and death.

“I feel like it was medical malpractice, and I say that because it was preventable,” Amber Thurman’s sister, Andrika Thurman, said.

Thurman’s family wants her to be remembered as a real person.

“Amber was loved,” said Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother. “She had ambitions. She had goals. She had dreams. Everything she did, she did it for her son to make a better life for him.”

Amber’s story

In the summer of 2022, Thurman had recently moved into a new place with her 6-year-old son, Messiah, and had applied to nursing school.

When she learned she was pregnant with twins, her family said she worried about how she would care for them.

“Being her big sister, my response was, ‘I support you in whatever decision you choose to make, I’m here,'” said Cjauna Williams.

At the time, Thurman’s home state of Georgia had just implemented its six-week abortion ban, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“I don’t understand how such a law could have been made. They say that the United States of America is the land of the free. So why aren’t women free to make their own decisions about their health? My sister died as a result, and I just don’t understand it,” said Andrika Thurman.

Weeks later, on Aug. 13, when Thurman was nine weeks pregnant, she decided to drive four hours to North Carolina to get a surgical abortion. Her best friend, Ricaria Baker, told ProPublica that she traveled with Thurman that day, but they missed the appointment due to traffic.

According to ProPublica, a clinic employee offered Thurman the FDA-approved abortion pill combination that accounts for over half of U.S. abortions. Baker told the nonprofit investigative journalism outlet Propublica that Thurman signed a release stating she was aware there are sometimes adverse reactions.

Days after taking the second pill, Thurman experienced severe cramping. Her boyfriend called 911 to report she was vomiting blood.

Just before 7 p.m. local time on Aug. 18, Thurman was taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, about 20 miles south of Atlanta.

It would reportedly take 19 hours before doctors decided to perform dilation and curettage surgery, also known as D&C. It’s a common procedure used to remove remaining fetal tissue from the uterus.

Williams told CBS News she was led to believe her daughter’s blood pressure was stable.

According to ProPublica, during surgery, Thurman’s heart stopped. She died on Aug. 19, 2022. Her death certificate said she died of septic shock and retained products on conception.

“I was there, she was giving me instructions. You have to take care of Messiah. Y’all have to take care of my baby and then the next time I saw her, she was lifeless,” Williams said.

A Piedmont Hospital spokesperson issued a statement to CBS News, saying in part, “Ms. Thurman presented in our Emergency Department in serious condition and began receiving care upon arrival. The care we provided in our efforts to save Ms. Thurman’s life, including the timing of her diagnostic workup, stabilization, interventions to treat her sepsis, and surgery, were based solely on clinically driven best practices.”  

ProPublica investigation

Georgia has a Maternal Mortality Review Committee made up of more than 30 experts, including 10 doctors. It reviews patient cases to identify the root causes of Georgia’s increasing maternal mortality rate.

Their findings are not made public, but ProPublica obtained a confidential report on Thurman from the review committee.

It wasn’t until September 2024 that Thurman’s family learned new information about her death. According to the report from the review committee, which concluded in July, there is a “good chance” that providing a D&C earlier could have prevented Thurman’s death.

Thurman’s family hired attorney Ben Crump to investigate the case.

“The medical records still have not been released to tell us what is the narrative of the doctors who were treating her,” Crump said.

Kavitha Surana is the ProPublica writer who obtained the report from a confidential source, nearly two years after Thurman’s death. She said she was able to see a summary of Thurman’s day in the hospital.

Surana said the committee report summarized Thurman’s treatment on Aug. 18 and 19, showing her health declining each hour. Despite her worsening condition, doctors didn’t take her into surgery until 19 hours after she arrived.

“They (the committee) are tasked with writing down the factors that led to the death and assigning how big of an impact it could have had. So they chose a large impact and, they checked the box of good chance that the outcome could have been prevented,” she explained. 

It is unknown why the doctors waited 19 hours to take Thurman into surgery. Many doctors in states with restrictive abortion bans have publicly acknowledged fear of losing their medical license or being prosecuted if they break the law. A pro-life obstetrician told CBS News doctors should have acted sooner, based on the report.

In October, the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the state’s restrictive six-week abortion ban while the state’s appeal is underway. A judge had previously halted the ban, calling it unconstitutional.

Jericka Duncan

Jericka Duncan is a national correspondent and the anchor for Sunday’s edition of the “CBS Weekend News.” Duncan is an Emmy-nominated journalist who has received several awards for her reporting, including two National Edward R. Murrow Awards and honors from the Associated Press and the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, which named her Journalist of the Year in 2012.