An Abortion Ban Killed Amber Thurman—And Likely Many More

In 1977, Rosie Jimenez died as a direct result of the Hyde Amendment, the ban on federal funding of abortion passed in 1976. A young mother and student in South Texas, she had had two abortions before the Hyde Amendment cut off her access under Medicaid. So she went to a midwife who performed an abortion in unsterile conditions, and she contracted a terrible infection. She suffered for days in agony and left behind a daughter who grew up without a mom. We only know these facts because of the reporting of the late feminist journalist Ellen Frankfort and abortion rights activist Frances Kissling, who traveled to McAllen, Texas, and spoke to the women who knew Rosie. If not for their reporting, Rosie may have been remembered as just another Latina who went across the border for an abortion out of shame, as a Washington Post article headlined “Doubts Arise About Abortion Martyr” put it. Like Surana at ProPublica, Kissling and Frankfort were able to draw a direct line between a woman’s death and the policy that killed her, which they ultimately documented in their book Rosie: The Investigation of a Wrongful Death.

The book is now out of print, and the Hyde Amendment is still law of the land. While efforts to repeal Hyde are finally gaining mainstream traction, we’ll never know how many more Rosies are out there whom we never learned about.

In 1988, Becky Bell died at the age of 17 as a direct result of Indiana’s parental consent law. When she discovered that she was pregnant she went to Planned Parenthood where she learned that to get an abortion she would need parental consent or a waiver from a judge. But the judge who would have considered Becky’s case was known to be anti-abortion. Fearing that she would disappoint her parents if she told them she was pregnant, Becky found a way to end the pregnancy without telling them. She died of pneumonia from an infection caused by unsterile instruments. We only know her story because her parents, an all-American couple who had been homecoming king and queen a year apart at the same high school, decided to go public with the secret their daughter took to her grave.

Today, Indiana is one of 14 states that ban abortion outright. We’ll never know how many more Beckys are out there whose names we never learned.  

Will the policy that killed Amber Thurman be allowed to stand?

The answer depends in part on the election. Georgia is a key swing state where voting rights activists have been working overtime to combat voter suppression and keep the state blue. (Voters there narrowly chose Biden and sent two Democratic senators to Washington in 2020). Vice-President Kamala Harris released a statement Monday that lay the blame for Thurman’s death on Trump, saying that “This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” and she has called attention many times to the threat abortion bans pose to pregnant people’s health and lives. But there’s more to do. If I were advising Harris, I’d tell her to hold a press conference in Thurman’s hometown with a photograph of this vibrant young woman and lay her death at the feet of Republican policymakers. Perhaps such an event would help bolster local Democrats in the state who could do something about the law that killed Amber Thurman.

“Reproductive Justice advocates have been sounding the alarm for years about abortion restrictions leading to worse maternal health and emergency reproductive care outcomes,” Regina Davis Moss of In Our Own Voice said in a statement. “In Our Own Voice’s recent poll found that 40% of Black women of reproductive age feel less safe and are unsure if they want to have kids as a result of the Dobbs decision.”

Beyond this election, Thurman’s legacy will depend on reproductive health and justice activists, who on Monday responded to her death with a resounding sense of outrage that was even more profound because they all knew this day was coming.  

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, echoed the sentiment: “This is the reality of being a Black woman seeking care in an anti-abortion America. We are dying.”

As ProPublica reported, attorneys for the state of Georgia had chosen to ignore these warnings. When advocates tried to block the six-week ban that killed Amber Thurman by voicing concerns it would endanger women, the lawyers accused them of “hyperbolic fear mongering.” Two weeks later, Amber was dead.

The ban did exactly what we all knew it was going to do. 

But the sheer predictability of her death should deepen, rather than dampen, our outrage.