‘Stupid abortion ban’: Woman's family tells Oprah about tragic death

The family of Amber Nicole Thurman, who died in 2022, appeared with Vice President Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey at a “Unite for America” campaign event on Thursday.

Thurman, 28, died of an infection in Georgia after doctors declined to perform a procedure called a dilation and curettage or D&C, to clear fetal tissue from Thurman’s uterus after taking abortion pills. The procedure was outlawed by Republican-backed legislation that became state law after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

“Initially, I did not want the public to know my pain,” Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, said at the event. “I wanted to go through in silence. But I realized that it was selfish. I want you all to know Amber was not a statistic. She was loved by a family, a strong family, and we would have done whatever to get my baby, our baby, the help that she needed.”

Thurman’s sister CJ Williams added, “They just let her die because of some stupid abortion ban.”