USA: Georgia axes maternal health panel after leak about abortion deaths

Georgia officials have dissolved a committee responsible for investigating deaths of pregnant women in the state, after one or more members leaked confidential information about deaths linked to the state's strict abortion laws.

In a letter sent to members of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), Georgia health commissioner Kathleen Toomey said an investigation failed to identify those responsible for the leak, so all current members would be removed.

The news comes two months after the outlet published stories on the deaths of two women, external the panel ruled were preventable and linked to the state's strict abortion ban.

The women's stories became a rallying call for reproductive rights advocates and was cited often by Democrats during the US election.

Since June 2022, Georgia has prohibited all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women might not know they are pregnant, except in cases of rape, incest or when necessary to prevent "irreversible physical impairment" or death of the mother.

Amber Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, both died that same year, following rare complications involving the FDA-approved abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol prescribed from out of state.

Thurman waited 19 hours at a Georgia hospital before doctors performed a rare procedure - prohibited by the state abortion ban with few exceptions - needed to expel fetal tissue from the uterus that had not been fully cleared by the abortion pills.

By the time she was taken into surgery, Thurman had developed acute sepsis. She died on the surgery table.

Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, the panel of experts, which includes 10 doctors, deemed her death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.

“The fact that she felt that she had to make these decisions, that she didn’t have adequate choices here in Georgia, we felt that definitely influenced her case,” one committee member told ProPublica in September. “She’s absolutely responding to this legislation.”

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Source: BBC News, 22 November 2024