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A woman in Georgia died an entirely preventable death because the medical personnel were afraid that saving her life would send them to prison. She was 28 years old, a medical assistant who planned to attend nursing school, and the mother of a six-year-old son. Most importantly, she was a human being who had made her own decision to terminate a pregnancy that she wasn’t ready for.

She traveled out of state to get abortion pills, then suffered a rare complication: not all the fetal tissue was expelled. When she arrived at the emergency room, there was literally no fetus to save, but because of Georgia’s restrictive laws, doctors waited 19 hours to attempt the surgery that could have saved her life earlier. By then, it was too late.



Rest in power, Amber Nicole Thurman . Also in Georgia: a 41-year-old woman, married with 3 children, was warned that her health was too fragile for another pregnancy. When she unexpectedly became pregnant, her health problems weren’t enough to permit an abortion — the danger to her wasn’t “immanent” enough.

She obtained abortion pills by mail, and in her case too the fetal tissue wasn’t all expelled. She died at home, too terrified to go to the hospital. But given the above, there’s no guarantee that medical personnel would have acted to save her.

Rest in power, Candi Miller . More on their stories here . And a petition to charge GOP politicians in deaths of women denied abortions .

As always, this diary is a group effort. Thanks t.

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