Georgia Mom, 28, Dies of ‘Preventable’ Infection After Being Denied Life-Saving Procedure Due to State’s Abortion Laws

Amber Nicole Thurman was denied treatment for 20 hours — and now a state investigation has deemed her death “preventable”

A Georgia woman died after the state’s strict anti-abortion laws caused a 20-hour delay in her treatment.

In August 2022, Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, drove to a North Carolina clinic to have an abortion, Mother Jones reported. She could not get one in her home state of Georgia because she was six weeks pregnant — and Georgia had enacted a ban forbidding abortion after six weeks' gestation following the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade.

The clinic gave her the pregnancy-ending pills mifepristone and misoprostol, which she took back at home. A few days, later, Thurman had a rare complication where she didn’t expel all the fetal tissue, according to ProPublica, which was the first to report on the case.

When tissue remains in the uterus, it can cause "infection, which can damage your reproductive organs or even cause dangerous complications like sepsis when left untreated," the Cleveland Clinic says.

Thurman, a medical assistant and mom to a 6-year-old boy, began bleeding heavily, struggling with pain, and eventually lost consciousness at home, Mother Jones reported, leading her to seek treatment at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge. But due to Georgia’s stringent anti-abortion laws, doctors didn't proceed with a dilation and curettage — commonly known as a D&C.

As the Mayo Clinic explains, D&C is “a procedure to remove tissue from inside your uterus. Health care professionals perform dilation and curettage to diagnose and treat certain uterine conditions — such as heavy bleeding — or to clear the uterine lining after a miscarriage or abortion.”

Related: Oklahoma Woman with Non-Viable Pregnancy Says Hospital Told Her to Sit in the Parking Lot 'Until You Bleed Out'

However, ProPublica reports that an official state committee reported that doctors waited for 20 hours to operate while they monitored Thurman’s infection — during which time her blood pressure dropped and her organs failed.

Thurman died in August 2022, but a state investigation found that her death was “preventable” — and ProPublica said that Thurman’s is the first known “preventable” case linked to abortion.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

According to Georgia law, “no abortion shall be performed if the unborn child has a detectable human heartbeat except (a) in the event of a medical emergency or medically futile pregnancy.”

In the state, “medical emergency” is defined as “a condition in which an abortion is necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman … No such greater risk shall be deemed to exist if ... the pregnant woman will purposefully engage in conduct which she intends to result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Piedmont Henry Hospital has not responded to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Related: Pregnant Florida Woman Denied Emergency Abortion, Sent Home from Hospital: ‘I Knew I Would Die Within … Days’ (Exclusive) 

“We actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people,” Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, said, according to Mother Jones. 

“It cannot go on.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.