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Georgia Fires Entire Maternal Mortality Panel After Reporting on Abortion Ban Deaths
"This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm," said one journalist. "Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Nov 21, 2024
Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublicareported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.
ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.
"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.
In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.
Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.
ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."
As the outlet detailed:
Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.
"They did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, one of the groups challenging Georgia's abortion ban in court. "To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?"
Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.
"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."
New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletterAbortion, Every Day and the bookAbortion, also argued that Georgia officials fired the panel members because "they didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
"I wrote about this in my book—this is how they cover up our deaths," Valenti continued. "In Idaho, they disbanded the Maternal Mortality Review Committee altogether; in Texas, they put a well-known anti-abortion activist on there to skew the data."
"I guarantee you that when Georgia replaces those seats on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, they're going to put anti-abortion activists on there," she added. "Just watch."
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'Direct Result of Trump': Texas Woman Died Because Doctors Feared Abortion Ban
"A vote for Donald Trump and his ghoulish Supreme Court justices and his 'leave it to the states' is a vote for this—people dying in pregnancy," said one rights advocate.
Oct 30, 2024
The case of Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old Houston resident who arrived at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest Hospital on September 2, 2021, was devastating—a planned pregnancy that was ending in a miscarriage at 17 weeks—but the treatment she needed was straightforward and recognized as the standard of care by obstetricians around the world, reported ProPublica on Wednesday.
But just one day earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court, stacked with right-wing justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, had allowed a six-week abortion ban to go into effect in Texas, threatening doctors with prosecution and jail time if they acted to help patients like Barnica while a fetal heartbeat was still detectable.
The law pushed doctors at the hospital to delay the care Barnica needed for 40 hours, leaving her vulnerable to the infection that killed her three days after she was finally provided with treatment.
Barnica's case is the latest reported by ProPublica, which is examining the cases of pregnant patients who have died after being denied healthcare because of the abortion bans and restrictions now in effect in 21 states.
Barnica, an immigrant from Honduras who had a young daughter, arrived at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest after experiencing cramps and bleeding. An ultrasound showed that a miscarriage was taking place, with Barnica's cervix dilated to 8.9 centimeters.
But doctors detected fetal cardiac activity, so they could not provide Barnica with medication to expedite a delivery of the miscarried fetus or a dilation and evacuation procedure to clear the uterus of fetal tissue—both of which would have allowed Barnica to begin healing from the miscarriage and protected her from developing an infection such as sepsis.
Doctors announced on September 5 that they could no longer detect a fetal heartbeat, and gave Barnica medication to help her deliver.
But the damage was done. Barnica experienced increasingly heavy bleeding, and her husband rushed her back to the hospital on September 7. He was shocked to learn that she had died the next day, with "sepsis" involving "products of conception" listed as the cause of death.
ProPublica asked more than a dozen OB-GYNs and maternal-fetal medicine doctors to review Barnica's case, which is still being reviewed by a Texas commission that examines maternal deaths and determines whether they were preventable.
But a four-page summary and timeline of Barnica's hospital visits as well as an autopsy report clearly showed that her death was "preventable," said the experts, who called the case and the hospital's failure to provide standard miscarriage care "horrific" and "egregious."
The hospital told ProPublica it had a responsibility "to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations" and did not respond to questions about Barnica's case.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said Wednesday that she was "disgusted and hurt" to learn that Barnica had died because of the state's abortion ban.
"NO PERSON should have to die while losing a child—something that is beyond their control or choice!" said Crockett.
Barnica is one of two Texas women whose abortion ban-related deaths ProPublica is planning to report on this week, as voters across the country head to the polls for early voting ahead of the November 5 election.
Last month, the outlet reported on Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, two women in Georgia who died because of that state's six-week ban after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Reproductive rights advocates have emphasized in recent weeks that such cases are the direct result of Trump's selection of right-wing justices for the Supreme Court and the passage of abortion bans across the country—which Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has said should be determined by the states.
"As more deaths are announced, it's clear that pregnant people in states with abortion bans have no expectation of safety. Josseli Barnica died from a delay in miscarriage care caused by a Texas abortion ban," said Greer Donley, a legal expert who specializes in abortion law.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin called Barnica's death "heartbreaking, preventable, and the direct result of Trump and the MAGA agenda."
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has spoken about Thurman's death since ProPublica reported on the case last month, saying, "She should be alive today" at a campaign event. Her campaign has aired an ad featuring the woman's family that ties her death to Trump's anti-abortion rights agenda.
Trump has publicly mentioned Thurman's death only once, to joke that a town hall he held on Fox News would get "better ratings" than a press call Thurman's family was having the same day.
"This is such an unfathomable tragedy, brought forth by Republicans and their pro-life bullshit," said Daily Kos reporter Emily C. Singer of Barnica's story on Wednesday. "Vote like your life depends on it, because it does."
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Judge Strikes Down Georgia's Six-Week Abortion Ban in 'Absolutely Epic Ruling'
"Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy," Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision.
Sep 30, 2024
Reproductive rights defenders cheered Monday's ruling by a Georgia judge striking down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that means the medical procedure will be legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney excoriated the LIFE Act, which was signed into law in 2019 by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and prohibits abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The so-called "fetal heartbeat" law—a medically misleading term—is applicable before many people even know they're pregnant.
Other states including Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio passed similar "heartbeat" laws in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, which occurred in 2022 when the tribunal's right-wing supermajority issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
"Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote," McBurney wrote in his ruling. "Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have."
"It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could—or should—force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another," the judge said.
"It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women—and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily Black and brown women—to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government's behest," McBurney added.
As Jessica Valenti noted on her Abortion, Every Day Substack, "the ruling comes just weeks after ProPublica's investigation into the deaths of two women killed by Georgia's abortion ban, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
As NBC Newsreported Monday:
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs in 2019 soon after Kemp signed it into law. As it faced the legal challenge, in 2022, McBurney ruled that year that the law violated the U.S. Constitution in 2022 and struck it down. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, soon took up the case and allowed it to remain in effect. The case was sent back to McBurney, who found the law in violation of the state's constitution.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement that Monday's ruling is "a significant step in the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia."
"We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy," Simpson continued. "At the same time, we can't forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller."
"For years, Black women have sounded the alarm that abortion bans are deadly," she noted. "While true justice would mean Amber and Candi were still with us today, we will continue to demand accountability to ensure that their lives—and the lives of others who we have yet to learn of—were not lost in vain."
"We know that the fight continues as anti-abortion white supremacists will stop at nothing to control our bodies and attack our liberation," Simpson added. "We are ready for them and will never back down until we achieve reproductive justice: the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, the human right to have children, or not, and raise them in safe and sustainable communities."
Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that McBurney "has rightfully struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban as a flagrant violation of Georgia's longstanding and robust right to privacy, restoring access to abortion at a time when too many have been prevented from accessing this critical health care and from deciding what is best for their bodies, health, and family lives."
"For too long, the ban has caused a public health crisis, as evidenced by the testimony plaintiffs presented at trial and devastating stories recently reported about the preventable deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman," she continued. "Today's ruling is a step toward ensuring that people can access and clinicians can provide critical healthcare without fear of criminalization or stigma."
"This victory demonstrates that when courts faithfully apply constitutional protections for bodily autonomy, laws that restrict access to abortion and force people to continue pregnancies against their will cannot stand," Wang added.
Since the Dobbs ruling, 13 states have passed abortion bans with limited exceptions and 28 states have prohibited the procedure based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
However, there has been tremendous nationwide pushback against abortion bans, with voters opting to uphold reproductive rights every time the issue appears on state ballots—including in conservative Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio.
As many as 10 states could have abortion rights measures on the ballot in this November's election, which at the top of the ticket pits reproductive freedom champion and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against former Republican President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three right-wing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and who critics fear would sign a national abortion ban if one were passed by Congress.
Trump also said he would allow states to monitor people's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban.
Kemp's office slammed McBurney's ruling.
"Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge," Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. "Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn."
Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is expected to appeal to the state Supreme Court to block Monday's ruling.
"We are prepared to continue fighting this case regardless," the Center for Reproductive Rights vowed on social media, "and we will NOT back down from this fight."
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