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Two Georgia moms, Amber Thurman and Kandi Miller In 2022, Propulica, the nonprofit news outlet linked to the state's medical abortion ban, died. reported this week. Both experienced complications after taking abortion pills, the report – complications, doctors emphasized, are very rare and completely treatable.
“To read that a mother has died of something completely preventable in the United States when she's trying to make good decisions for herself and her family — I don't think 'tragic' is an adequate word,” said Dr. Ghazale Moayedi, OB/GYN and co-founder. Pegasus Health Justice Center In Dallas.
According to reports, Thurman went to a local hospital days later with a severe infection in her home state of Georgia, shortly after an abortion was banned from a clinic in North Carolina, after her body failed to arrive. Removal of all fetal tissue.
“He didn't have to wait a second to get her care,” Moayedi told . “She should have been immediately taken for uterine aspiration” a Process Both abortion and miscarriage care are performed to remove the contents of the uterus.
Instead, ProPublica reported, Thurman did not receive surgical assistance to remove the fetal tissue for 20 hours. The report said it wasn't clear from Thurman's records why doctors were waiting so long, but said the practice had been convicted of abortion by the state weeks earlier. Suspensionafter the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that summer. Thurman's heart stopped during surgery, the outlet reported, after she was diagnosed with severe sepsis in the hospital and went into organ failure.
According to one second ReportMiller did not require any care in the hospital, in fact – as her son told ProPublica – she was bedridden for days after taking an abortion pill. The Clayton County medical examiner's report, obtained by , cited a conversation with her husband and indicated that she “did not go to an O/G because of current pregnancy and abortion laws.”
Miller also did not remove all of the fetal tissue, ProPublica reported, and had to have a dilation and curettage, or D&C, to remove it and avoid infection. According to an autopsy report obtained by , she died of a combination of drugs, including the pain reliever fentonyl and acetaminophen. The medical examiner's report indicated that she had no history of illegal drug use.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported to Maternal Mortality Review Committee They are secret. ProPublica, which cited unnamed sources including members of the committee, said the reports deemed Thurman and Miller's deaths “preventable” and related to the state's abortion law in Miller's case.
The reports have fueled the political debate over abortion, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying this week that “this is what we feared when Roe passed.” Harris visited Georgia on Friday to offer additional comments on women's reproductive rights.
Opponents of abortion rights He was blamed Thurman blames doctors for not providing prompt care — and the medical abortion itself.
But researchers who study medical abortion and doctors who order abortions emphasized to that the procedure is safe and that patients are given instructions on what to do if they experience unusual complications.
The drug has been shown to cause abortion approved It has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2000 and is currently approved to terminate pregnancy at 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The data shows that it is the most common way people in the United States currently obtain an abortion. Two thirds About 1 million abortions were performed in the regular health care system in the U.S. last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
He It includes Two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed to maintain pregnancy, and is taken first. It is followed a day or two later by misoprostol, which causes the uterus to contract, leading to cramping and bleeding, during which the pregnancy tissue is expelled.
The process, Moayedi explains, is “physiologically identical” to miscarriage.
Serious adverse events with medical abortion occur less than 0.5% of the time, according to Dr. Daniel GrossmanDirector of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (Don't forget) program at the University of California, San Francisco. Those adverse events can include hospitalization, blood transfusions and surgery, he said.
Retention of pregnancy tissue and vacuum aspiration occur in 3% to 5% of people who have medical abortions, Grossman said, but it is not considered a serious problem and is typically an outpatient procedure. According to Moayedi, old pregnancy tissue leads to infection.
Deaths after medical abortions are rare, Grossman said: 32 were reported among people using mifepristone between 2000 and 2022, when an estimated 5.9 million women used the drug. He said his team had reviewed it. Causes About half of those reported to the FDA are probably not abortion-related.
“I've cared for thousands of people who have had medical abortions,” said Moayedi, who says the clinic offers “summary” care by seeing people in Texas before or after abortions. I can count on one hand – less than one hand – the number of people who have been infected. So this is very rare. ”
Moayedi is especially rare, because women are “more likely to seek help immediately” if they have a problem — a concern that, ProPublica reports, may be less accessible in states where abortion is banned.
Symptoms of the problem include fever, severe abdominal pain and bleeding that lasts more than two hours during periods, Moayedi said. Grossman adds that feeling very weak or having nausea, vomiting or diarrhea more than a day after taking the last pill could be a sign of an infection.
He advises people experiencing distressing symptoms to try to get the medication to a clinic or service or to call the service. Miscarriage and abortion hotline at 1-833-246-2632; It's a toll-free hotline staffed by clinics to answer questions and provide support.
But if a patient experiences any of the above symptoms and is unable to talk to a medical professional over the phone, they should go to the emergency room, he said.
People with these problems can and should get care anywhere legally, even in states where abortion is prohibited – doctors told , so don't hesitate to go to the hospital for emergency care.
But the cost can not be only for the patient to get care, Moayedi emphasized; Hospital systems need to make sure they understand the laws and have plans in place to allow physicians to provide the necessary treatment, he said.
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“The same problems with medical abortion can happen with miscarriage,” Grossman says. The treatment is the same,” he said.
“I would never recommend that a patient lie, but I am very concerned about these reports of complications after the care of patients in states where abortion is prohibited – even though the law does not apply to these cases,” he said, his team heard through him. Research About the same delay in the care of other patients. “Doctors can treat a patient with bleeding or infection without knowing whether or not the patient has taken medication.”
He said he advises clinicians not to ask patients whether they have taken medication to end a pregnancy, “as this does not affect their care and instead increases legal risks for patients.”
's Jeffrey Cope and Sandy Lamott contributed to this report.