October 7, 2024 • 12 mins
Across the US, the fight for abortion and reproductive rights wages on. We look at the what's going on in Georgia, where we're only just beginning to see the fallout of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortion bans.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
Will never told you production to buy her radio, and
welcome to a Monday mini content. Warning before we get
into this, we are going to be talking about abortions
(00:26):
and death. So if you're not in space for that today,
totally understand. But this is really important. We're going to
have to come back and talk about it a lot
because we were being very specific in this episode about
our home state of Georgia. It's also kind of a
rapidly evolving situation. So today is October fourth, twenty twenty four.
(00:48):
But I wrote this, we put together this outline I
think September thirtieth. I checked to see if there were
other updates, but you know, things are changing constantly. Yes, yes,
So today we're going to be talking about abortion and
specifically what's going on in our home state of Georgia,
(01:10):
where in twenty twenty two, a six week abortion band
wasn't acted and you probably heard, but recently the deaths
of two women were attributed to delays and emergency medical
care due to the state's abortion bands, and experts maintain
these deaths were preventable and there's a lot to break
(01:30):
down here. So let's look into it. Twenty eight year
old Amber Nicole Thurban took abortion pills and suffered a
rare complication where her body didn't get rid of all
of the fetal tissue. She went to the hospital for
a routine procedure called a dilation and courtage, or a DNC,
something the hospital could completely treat. However, earlier in twenty
(01:56):
twenty two, Georgia had enacted an abortion band that made
DNC's most completely illegal, with only a few exceptions. Doctors
who performed the procedure could face up to a decade
in jail. So Thurman waited in the hospital bed in
pain as her infection worsened and her organs failed for
(02:16):
twenty hours. She waited before the operation finally started, but
at that point it was too late and she died.
Thurman had decided on an abortion soon after she found
out she was pregnant. However, her pregnancy just passed the
six week deadline that was put into effect on July twentieth,
twenty twenty two. She hoped that the ban would be
(02:36):
overturned so she could get an abortion close to home,
but when that didn't happen, over the next few weeks,
she decided to go to North Carolina, where her abortion
would still be legal. However, the clinic was overwhelmed with
people trying to get healthcare in the wake of other bands,
and she missed her slot. She was instead prescribed a
medical two pill abortion, completely legal, completely safe. Because taking
(03:01):
the day off and dealing with protesters have been costly
and an ordeal, Thurman signed a release that she understood
she'd need to go to the emergency room on the
off chances something went wrong. She took the pills as
instructed when she started noticing symptoms. The clinic in North
Carolina would have performed the procedure she needed in an
(03:22):
hour for free, but she wasn't in North Carolina anymore.
Just a note, death due to complications of these pills
are extremely rare. From twenty to twenty twenty four, over
six million American women have taken the peprestone, and only
thirty two deaths were reported to the FDA, only thirty two.
(03:43):
Many of the deaths involved sepsis or things like drug
overdoses and titchinal or accidental so after her death, a
state committee of experts, including ten doctors, determined that her
death was preventable, and that this delay was a quote
large reason she died. The committee's job is to improve
(04:03):
maternal health by looking into pregnancy related deaths, so that's
why they were looking into it. While their reviews aren't public,
news outlets like pro Publica have confirmed at least two
other women have died because Georgia's abortion bands have prevented
them from accessing the care that they need in a
timely manner. There are almost certainly more, especially because a
(04:25):
lot of these committees have a lag of up to
two years, which is why we're hearing about this now.
This means we could be seeing a lot more stories
coming out since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Soon
Thurmons is being called the first official case of a
preventable abortion related death since then, since Roe v. Wade
(04:45):
was overturned, and this is what medical experts warned would happen.
Even though Republican lawmakers pushing for these bands often point
to exceptions for the life of the mother, this ignores
how bodies work and how medicine works. It's also just
cruel and pointless because you're just waiting to see if
it gets worse. Why, And of course medical practitioners are
(05:09):
worried about being prosecuted, so that adds a whole other layer.
People have been turned away and told to come back
when they're worse or quote crashing, even when the pregnancy
isn't viable, even when in dangers lives. Yep, that's dangerous. Also.
By the time Thurmann went to the hospital, she had
vomited blood and passed out. And I don't know how
(05:30):
much worse you have to get. The report on her
death deemed it should have been immediately clear that she
was in danger. She was diagnosed with acute severe sepsis
at around nine thirty PM, but she didn't receive treatment
until the next day. DNC was discussed multiple times before
she died, so they knew this was a thing that
(05:50):
they were worried about performing it. The hospital did not
have clear instructions on how to interpret the law, and
a lot of the wording is disturbingly vague. Weren't sure
how like how much in danger does she have to be?
According to ProPublica, the availability of DNC's after Roe vwwaid
(06:11):
decrease the maternal death rate for women of color by
up to forty percent, and Georgia has one of the
country's highest maternal death rates, and black women are three
times more at risk than white women. Maternal death rates
are going up as part of the reason this committee exists.
When asked to comments, Republican officials said it was part
(06:31):
of a fear mongering campaign. In light of all of this,
On September thirtieth, twenty twenty four, a judge in Georgia
struck down the state's six week abortion law. Fulton County
(06:54):
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote, liberty in Georgia includes,
in its meaning, in its petions, and in its bundle
of rights, the power of a woman to control her
own body, to decide what happens to it, and in
it antert state interference with her healthcare choices. When a
fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can
assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then and
(07:17):
only then, may society intervene. An arbitrary six week ban
on post embryonic cardiac activity pregnancy terminations is inconsistent with
these rights and the proper balance that a viability rule
establishes between a woman's rights of liberty and privacy and
society's interest in protecting and caring for unborn infants, So
(07:38):
his new ruling would allow abortions for up to twenty weeks,
which is what it was. An appeal has already been
announced though goes yeah. But if it stands, it could
open the doors for a similar overturning in nearby states
because here in the South. It's part of the issue
is a lot of neighboring states have similar things. You
(08:00):
have to travel pretty far to get one. At the
same time, people in Georgia, both providers and otherwise, have
spoken about how much the uncertainty weighs on them. So
like performing abortions, who knows how long we could be
doing this. Before the band was enacted, there was an
estimated four four hundred abortions a month in Georgia, and
after it was enacted it's about twenty four hundred. The
(08:23):
legal challenge that led to this overturning was brought by
Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Collective against the State
of Georgia. So even if things can feel hopeless, there
are people doing this work and things can be changed.
The executive director of Sister Song, Monicas Simpson, said today's
when was hard fought and is a significant step in
(08:45):
the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia, where
you are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for
bodily autonomy. So I think we're going to see a
lot more stories about this right than the coming weeks.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It's already being challenged right now, so I have a
feeling this is going to lead up to Supreme Court
hearing again.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Maybe yep, but.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Again, just like you said that this is the good
news that it will continue to be challenged. Unfortunately, is
at the cost of women's lives.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I know not too long ago the parents of Amber
was loud about how she is not a statistic and
that this was preventable and this is a heinous way
of losing their child because again, it was an easy procedure.
It should have it shouldn't It should not have happened.
(09:35):
And we've seen this all over the country. We've seen
more and more women being charged for murder with miscarriages
as well. Uh, there's a lot happening that we can't constant.
It's definitely constant. I have seen about abortion being on
the ballot in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Oh, because it's not currently but is it They're going
to put it on the ballot.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I think there's a whole conversation, and I know Florida
for sure is having a conversation and they are pushing
to have that on the ballot, and most of the
citizens of Florida are like, yeah, we want it, but
Descantas is like fighting hard against it. I believe it's
being talked about in Georgia. There's a lot happening. We
know this as a newly purple state that we are
(10:22):
having to fight so much, and we say as in
the collective state of Georgia. There's also just been in
a hurricane that has caused massive havoc on the southeast,
including areas of Georgia. Atlanta. Augusta has hit really hard,
which is south of Atlanta. But there's a lot happening,
and including our Board of Elections and voter registration being
(10:44):
constantly challenged because they are trying to do hand ballots,
hand counts. They are trying to already disenfranchise so many people.
Our deadline registration deadline is coming up, and they've done
a lot to kid out a lot of voters. Like
it is hot, like I'm almost i guess, just to
be too real, lost hope in Georgia, not because of
(11:06):
the people of Georgia, but because of the corruption that
has happened in the board, even to the point that
our leaders are afraid to do either way, like they're
not even they're not condemning anything and they're not approving
of anything. So it's just it's a show essentially down here.
And and a lot of this also, the abortion stuff,
(11:27):
it is.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
A lot.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It is a lot happening here.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
It is, it is. But definitely check out if this
is something that's important to you. Check out organizations who
are doing work like this. Check to see if you're
registered to vote, even if you think you are, check again.
But yeah, this is We're gonna have to come back
and talk about this because, like I said, this is
pretty specific to our region, but it's happening. It's happening
(11:56):
everywhere and not just in the US unfortunately. But yeah,
if you listeners, if you have any resources or any
organizations we should check out. If you've seen anything where
you are wherever that is that we should be talking about,
please let us know. You can email us a Steffani
your mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find
(12:17):
us on Twitter, at moms to podcast on Instagram and
TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book where we do talk about abortion. You can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super producer consenaor executive Trust to Maya and your contribuer Joey.
Thank you, Thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never
Told You is production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
(12:37):
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your paper shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
Will never told you production to buy her radio, and
welcome to a Monday mini content. Warning before we get
into this, we are going to be talking about abortions
(00:26):
and death. So if you're not in space for that today,
totally understand. But this is really important. We're going to
have to come back and talk about it a lot
because we were being very specific in this episode about
our home state of Georgia. It's also kind of a
rapidly evolving situation. So today is October fourth, twenty twenty four.
(00:48):
But I wrote this, we put together this outline I
think September thirtieth. I checked to see if there were
other updates, but you know, things are changing constantly. Yes, yes,
So today we're going to be talking about abortion and
specifically what's going on in our home state of Georgia,
(01:10):
where in twenty twenty two, a six week abortion band
wasn't acted and you probably heard, but recently the deaths
of two women were attributed to delays and emergency medical
care due to the state's abortion bands, and experts maintain
these deaths were preventable and there's a lot to break
(01:30):
down here. So let's look into it. Twenty eight year
old Amber Nicole Thurban took abortion pills and suffered a
rare complication where her body didn't get rid of all
of the fetal tissue. She went to the hospital for
a routine procedure called a dilation and courtage, or a DNC,
something the hospital could completely treat. However, earlier in twenty
(01:56):
twenty two, Georgia had enacted an abortion band that made
DNC's most completely illegal, with only a few exceptions. Doctors
who performed the procedure could face up to a decade
in jail. So Thurman waited in the hospital bed in
pain as her infection worsened and her organs failed for
(02:16):
twenty hours. She waited before the operation finally started, but
at that point it was too late and she died.
Thurman had decided on an abortion soon after she found
out she was pregnant. However, her pregnancy just passed the
six week deadline that was put into effect on July twentieth,
twenty twenty two. She hoped that the ban would be
(02:36):
overturned so she could get an abortion close to home,
but when that didn't happen, over the next few weeks,
she decided to go to North Carolina, where her abortion
would still be legal. However, the clinic was overwhelmed with
people trying to get healthcare in the wake of other bands,
and she missed her slot. She was instead prescribed a
medical two pill abortion, completely legal, completely safe. Because taking
(03:01):
the day off and dealing with protesters have been costly
and an ordeal, Thurman signed a release that she understood
she'd need to go to the emergency room on the
off chances something went wrong. She took the pills as
instructed when she started noticing symptoms. The clinic in North
Carolina would have performed the procedure she needed in an
(03:22):
hour for free, but she wasn't in North Carolina anymore.
Just a note, death due to complications of these pills
are extremely rare. From twenty to twenty twenty four, over
six million American women have taken the peprestone, and only
thirty two deaths were reported to the FDA, only thirty two.
(03:43):
Many of the deaths involved sepsis or things like drug
overdoses and titchinal or accidental so after her death, a
state committee of experts, including ten doctors, determined that her
death was preventable, and that this delay was a quote
large reason she died. The committee's job is to improve
(04:03):
maternal health by looking into pregnancy related deaths, so that's
why they were looking into it. While their reviews aren't public,
news outlets like pro Publica have confirmed at least two
other women have died because Georgia's abortion bands have prevented
them from accessing the care that they need in a
timely manner. There are almost certainly more, especially because a
(04:25):
lot of these committees have a lag of up to
two years, which is why we're hearing about this now.
This means we could be seeing a lot more stories
coming out since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Soon
Thurmons is being called the first official case of a
preventable abortion related death since then, since Roe v. Wade
(04:45):
was overturned, and this is what medical experts warned would happen.
Even though Republican lawmakers pushing for these bands often point
to exceptions for the life of the mother, this ignores
how bodies work and how medicine works. It's also just
cruel and pointless because you're just waiting to see if
it gets worse. Why, And of course medical practitioners are
(05:09):
worried about being prosecuted, so that adds a whole other layer.
People have been turned away and told to come back
when they're worse or quote crashing, even when the pregnancy
isn't viable, even when in dangers lives. Yep, that's dangerous. Also.
By the time Thurmann went to the hospital, she had
vomited blood and passed out. And I don't know how
(05:30):
much worse you have to get. The report on her
death deemed it should have been immediately clear that she
was in danger. She was diagnosed with acute severe sepsis
at around nine thirty PM, but she didn't receive treatment
until the next day. DNC was discussed multiple times before
she died, so they knew this was a thing that
(05:50):
they were worried about performing it. The hospital did not
have clear instructions on how to interpret the law, and
a lot of the wording is disturbingly vague. Weren't sure
how like how much in danger does she have to be?
According to ProPublica, the availability of DNC's after Roe vwwaid
(06:11):
decrease the maternal death rate for women of color by
up to forty percent, and Georgia has one of the
country's highest maternal death rates, and black women are three
times more at risk than white women. Maternal death rates
are going up as part of the reason this committee exists.
When asked to comments, Republican officials said it was part
(06:31):
of a fear mongering campaign. In light of all of this,
On September thirtieth, twenty twenty four, a judge in Georgia
struck down the state's six week abortion law. Fulton County
(06:54):
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote, liberty in Georgia includes,
in its meaning, in its petions, and in its bundle
of rights, the power of a woman to control her
own body, to decide what happens to it, and in
it antert state interference with her healthcare choices. When a
fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can
assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then and
(07:17):
only then, may society intervene. An arbitrary six week ban
on post embryonic cardiac activity pregnancy terminations is inconsistent with
these rights and the proper balance that a viability rule
establishes between a woman's rights of liberty and privacy and
society's interest in protecting and caring for unborn infants, So
(07:38):
his new ruling would allow abortions for up to twenty weeks,
which is what it was. An appeal has already been
announced though goes yeah. But if it stands, it could
open the doors for a similar overturning in nearby states
because here in the South. It's part of the issue
is a lot of neighboring states have similar things. You
(08:00):
have to travel pretty far to get one. At the
same time, people in Georgia, both providers and otherwise, have
spoken about how much the uncertainty weighs on them. So
like performing abortions, who knows how long we could be
doing this. Before the band was enacted, there was an
estimated four four hundred abortions a month in Georgia, and
after it was enacted it's about twenty four hundred. The
(08:23):
legal challenge that led to this overturning was brought by
Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Collective against the State
of Georgia. So even if things can feel hopeless, there
are people doing this work and things can be changed.
The executive director of Sister Song, Monicas Simpson, said today's
when was hard fought and is a significant step in
(08:45):
the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia, where
you are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for
bodily autonomy. So I think we're going to see a
lot more stories about this right than the coming weeks.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It's already being challenged right now, so I have a
feeling this is going to lead up to Supreme Court
hearing again.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Maybe yep, but.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Again, just like you said that this is the good
news that it will continue to be challenged. Unfortunately, is
at the cost of women's lives.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I know not too long ago the parents of Amber
was loud about how she is not a statistic and
that this was preventable and this is a heinous way
of losing their child because again, it was an easy procedure.
It should have it shouldn't It should not have happened.
(09:35):
And we've seen this all over the country. We've seen
more and more women being charged for murder with miscarriages
as well. Uh, there's a lot happening that we can't constant.
It's definitely constant. I have seen about abortion being on
the ballot in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Oh, because it's not currently but is it They're going
to put it on the ballot.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I think there's a whole conversation, and I know Florida
for sure is having a conversation and they are pushing
to have that on the ballot, and most of the
citizens of Florida are like, yeah, we want it, but
Descantas is like fighting hard against it. I believe it's
being talked about in Georgia. There's a lot happening. We
know this as a newly purple state that we are
(10:22):
having to fight so much, and we say as in
the collective state of Georgia. There's also just been in
a hurricane that has caused massive havoc on the southeast,
including areas of Georgia. Atlanta. Augusta has hit really hard,
which is south of Atlanta. But there's a lot happening,
and including our Board of Elections and voter registration being
(10:44):
constantly challenged because they are trying to do hand ballots,
hand counts. They are trying to already disenfranchise so many people.
Our deadline registration deadline is coming up, and they've done
a lot to kid out a lot of voters. Like
it is hot, like I'm almost i guess, just to
be too real, lost hope in Georgia, not because of
(11:06):
the people of Georgia, but because of the corruption that
has happened in the board, even to the point that
our leaders are afraid to do either way, like they're
not even they're not condemning anything and they're not approving
of anything. So it's just it's a show essentially down here.
And and a lot of this also, the abortion stuff,
(11:27):
it is.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
A lot.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It is a lot happening here.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
It is, it is. But definitely check out if this
is something that's important to you. Check out organizations who
are doing work like this. Check to see if you're
registered to vote, even if you think you are, check again.
But yeah, this is We're gonna have to come back
and talk about this because, like I said, this is
pretty specific to our region, but it's happening. It's happening
(11:56):
everywhere and not just in the US unfortunately. But yeah,
if you listeners, if you have any resources or any
organizations we should check out. If you've seen anything where
you are wherever that is that we should be talking about,
please let us know. You can email us a Steffani
your mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find
(12:17):
us on Twitter, at moms to podcast on Instagram and
TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book where we do talk about abortion. You can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super producer consenaor executive Trust to Maya and your contribuer Joey.
Thank you, Thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never
Told You is production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
(12:37):
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your paper shows.
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