The Downward Spiral of U.S. Abortion Policy: Amber Thurman and the LIFE Act

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sent shock waves across the nation. For nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade guaranteed abortive healthcare for all pregnant people. The Justices in Roe held that, although abortions are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, they are part of an implied right to privacy, which also pertains to search and seizure, marriage, and sex. 

However, six of the nine Justices in Dobbs were unsatisfied with the Court’s previous ruling. In overturning Roe, Justice Alito argued on behalf of the majority using a textualist perspective wherein abortions cannot be a fundamental right since they were not written into the Constitution. Alito also used historical analysis, arguing that abortions should be illegal since they were not allowed during the earliest years of our nation’s sovereignty. 

Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented, claiming the Court has stripped away women’s rights, diminishing their status as equal citizens. Groups like the League of Women Voters expressed frustration over only respecting rights that existed at a time “before women and people of color were able to vote, own property, control their earnings, serve on juries or as lawyers, or virtually any other hallmarks of full participation in society.”

By prioritizing national tradition and fetuses over the lives of millions of pregnant people, the Supreme Court has regressed American society by several decades. Vice President Kamala Harris was justified in saying that SCOTUS made a mistake by leaving such a major, personal decision up to the states. It is easy for people like Donald Trump to claim otherwise when they are not affected by the unsafe conditions produced by restrictive laws. 

One unfathomable piece of pro-life legislation is Georgia’s Living Infants and Fairness Equality (LIFE) Act. This “heartbeat law” prohibits abortions after six weeks (when a fetus develops a detectable heartbeat), with exceptions for rape, incest, and medically risky or futile pregnancies. Though seemingly straightforward, many sections of the bill are ambiguous and do not account for all situations. Take, for example, the story of Amber Nicole Thurman as reported by ProPublica.

Thurman was a 28-year old medical assistant with dreams of becoming a nurse. She was pregnant with twins and could not afford to have them as a single mother who was already raising a young son. Unable to terminate the pregnancy in Georgia, she drove all up to North Carolina for an abortion. The clinic could not keep her appointment, so they supplied her with abortion pills. 

Thurman fell ill because some fetal tissue did not detach from her uterus. Shockingly, she developed sepsis. As Dr. Daniel Grossman, Director of the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program, shared in a CNN article, “serious adverse events with medication abortion happen less than 0.5% of the time.”

To remove the excess tissue, Thurman needed a dilation and curettage (D&C). She couldn’t make it back to the North Carolina facility, so she enlisted the help of local doctors. Alas, they hesitated to perform this life-saving operation because they were afraid of being criminally accused under the LIFE Act. 

According to a USA Today article, “Georgia’s ban considers a D&C a felony if performed outside of [naturally occurring miscarriages and stillbirths at 10-12 weeks] and could land doctors behind bars for up to 10 years.” Because Thurman’s medical abortion was not “natural,” the doctors did nothing and Thurman died 20 hours later.

Pro choice activists have accurately asserted that her death was preventable. Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said of this tragedy, “The Georgia lawmakers who passed this ban are ultimately responsible for her death, and the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Thurman’s passing serves as a cautionary tale. Governor Brian Kemp, who signed the LIFE Act into law, proclaimed, “Georgia is a state that values life,” when his actions robbed Amber Thurman of hers. The constitutional right to an abortion must be reinstated because the Dobbs decision can only bear even more negative consequences if it isn’t reversed immediately.

Paola Mendoza, a co-founder of the 2017 Women’s March, posted a video on Instagram, saying “[Thurman] died two years ago…we know that there are many more women and people who can get pregnant that have also died and we just don’t know their stories.”

Filled with hurt, heartache, but also determination to fight for reproductive rights, Mendoza wrote in her caption, “Today we cry. Tomorrow we organize.”