Amber Thurman’s stepdad wants Kamala Harris to stop using her death for politics

The family of Georgia woman Amber Thurman, who died after taking an abortion pill, are calling on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to stop politicizing her death.

Both the Democratic nominee for President and her running mate have recounted Thurman’s tragic story – often getting aspects wrong – along the campaign trail, but her relatives say they have already suffered enough since her 2022 death.

“I can see [Harris] using that as the only tool in Georgia against Trump,” Thurman’s stepfather Elijah Warren, 43, who works as a mental health technician, told The Post, adding the story is “being overused.”

“She is going to push that; I expect it. But it’s too much. It’s kind of like a funeral happening over and over again every time I see that.”

Democrats have raised 28-year-old Thurman’s case as an example of the dangers of abortion laws applied by some states after the overturning of the federal abortion law in 2022.

Thurman went to hospital in August that year because she had an extremely rare reaction from taking an abortion pill, which resulted in her not expelling all the fetal tissue from her body.

Her mother, Shanette Williams, who did not know that her daughter was pregnant, arrived at the hospital prior to her being taken in for surgery.

Cramping, bleeding and fearful of how things could end up, “She went from talking about the pain to ‘Mom, you’re going to have to take care of my son,’” Williams told Altanta’s WSBTV station.

Staff at Piedmont Henry Hospital delayed giving Thurman care for 20 hours, which could have saved her life, as they were unsure if they would be breaking the state’s 2019 Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act.

They needn’t have hesitated because the LIFE Act allows for treatment in the case of medical emergencies, but sadly Thurman instead died of septic shock.

Warren — who is married but separated from Shanette, with whom he has two kids who are 12 and 14 — says he sees it “more as a neglect of the hospital. They should have watched over my stepdaughter… The abortion already happened. There wasn’t a heartbeat going on.

“They should have just cleaned the tissue; that would have saved her life.” 

Somewhat ironically, Thurman was a medical assistant who had ambitions to become a nurse. She was already a single mother to a six-year-old son when she became pregnant again with twins.

According to Atlanta News First, her best friend said that Thurman desired the abortion in order to “preserve her newfound stability” in her life at that time.

Thurman was nine weeks into her pregnancy when she had driven to North Carolina for a surgical abortion, but missed the appointment. She was given the medications Mifepristone and Misoprostol took her first pill, then “insisted on driving home before any symptoms started,” according to an article by ProPublica.

She also followed medical advice and took the second pill the next day, after which she started having problems and was hospitalized a few days later on Aug. 18.

Harris brought up Thurman’s heartbreaking death at a September speech in Georgia and again during a recent appearance on the podcast “Call Her Daddy.”

In Georgia, Harris said of Thurman, “She was loved. And she should be alive today.”

She also incorrectly claimed “doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action,” in treating a patient.  

During the Vice Presidential debate on Oct. 1 Tim Walz also brought up Thurman. However, he botched the details about the circumstances that led to her death. 

He misstated her driving “600 miles to North Carolina” in search of an abortion. He also was wrong when he said that her passing took place as she was traveling “back and forth” from Georgia to North Carolina.

Harris and Walz have been accused by Republicans of exploiting the tragedy and pushing the idea that Donald Trump’s policies on abortion led to the tragedy.

Senator Ed Setzler commented on Amber’s death, telling WSBTV: “This young mother was killed by a 9-week chemical abortion that Georgia banned in 2019 because it is dangerous for women and deadly for their children.

“Georgia’s law gave these shamefully unprepared doctors every legal tool they needed to save this mother’s life.”

Since Thurman’s death Piedmont hospital has created policies for similar situations and educated staff on how to follow the law, but noted to ProPublica they are not able to give legal advice.

Thurman’s time in the hospital was incredibly painful. ProPublica reported that doctors watched her vitals fading and the infection spreading and she had lost consciousness before she was eventually taken into a theatre to be operated on.

Ben Crump, an attorney representing the family, told Newsweek the doctors left their patient to “cry and vomit and turn blue for 20 hours.”

He added that a medical malpractice lawsuit will also be forthcoming.

A report from Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee ruled that Amber’s death was preventable.

Thurman’s mother, according to Fox5 Atlanta, told the story of Amber to Harris during a campaign town-hall in Michigan.

A report from Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee ruled that Amber’s death was preventable.

Thurman’s mother told the story of Amber to Harris during a campaign town-hall in Michigan.

According to Fox5, she made a statement saying, “The fight for justice for Amber is a fight for every woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and access the medical care she needs.”

Warren, whose father is a pastor, says he has a differing view from his estranged wife.

“We’re religious people. I’m against abortion,” he told The Post.