Like many women in Georgia and across the country — I was shaken to my core the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned. I am a mother of five children. I know there is no safe pregnancy without access to abortion care. Without control over our bodies, we are not free. The warnings of what the Supreme Court intended to do didn’t lessen the shock – I felt a deep anger, sadness, and grief. I knew that the Georgia abortion ban was deadly. Now I feel that same anger, sadness, and grief as I see the worst case scenario come to pass.
Just this week, we learned of Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28 year-old mother, who died after becoming septic when doctors delayed performing a routine Dilation and Curettage (D&C) procedure. Thurman suffered in pain for more than 20 hours, her organs failing. When doctors finally operated, it was too late.
In the weeks following the Dobbs decision, I could not forget the images of abortion bans immediately being signed into law across the country. I was disturbed when I noticed the pattern of who was in the room, singing these bills and banning our rights. Or moreover, who wasn’t in these rooms. Majority of these decision makers were men, men who not only were stripping me and every woman I love of our rights, but doing so with such little concern for the lives they so recklessly put at stake. I felt helpless. I was helpless. Plus, I immediately began to question where we go from here—and what role I would play in restoring abortion access to my friends, neighbors, and daughters.
The State of Georgia is culpable
The same Georgia lawmakers – the same men – who were so eager to make abortion illegal, passed a law making a D&C procedure a felony with very few exceptions. This law directly led to Amber Nicole’s death. A D&C is a minor and routine procedure, but the law restricting it led to a little boy who now has to grow up without his mother. How can we expect that doctors will be able to provide the appropriate care when they are operating in a climate of fear of losing their careers? This fear is exactly what this law is designed to create – a chilling effect on medical care needed by women.
Worst of all, Amber Nicole’s story isn’t unique. A woman named Candi Miller also died after being unable to seek care due to Georgia’s restrictive and controlling laws. How many more women’s stories are not being told in national news? How many more women are going to die because of a draconian law, put into place by Republican lawmakers who have no business acting as medical professionals? Additionally, how many women have already died? Amber and Candi’s deaths were preventable. Maternal health experts determined they were due to lack of access to safe abortion care, the same safe abortion care that was stolen from us.
Nobody is safe
When Governor Kemp signed our state’s abortion ban into law, he said that ‘Georgia is a state that values life.’ And yet he has let many innocent women die because they needed medical care. Georgia already has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country. Black women are three times more likely to die during pregnancy than their White counterparts. In the post-Roe world, Georgia’s maternal mortality rate is increasing, rising by 40% for women of color.
This is not about valuing life, this is about controlling women and denying us our privacy, dignity, and freedom. One of my strongest memories from law school is learning about the steady progression of individual rights secured in America. What alarms me is this rolling back of rights. We are witnessing the roll back of our nation’s agreement that we are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In this climate, no rights, and no body is safe. Amber Nicole should be alive. Candi Miller should be alive. Pregnancy should never result in otherwise preventable death – women exercising bodily autonomy should not result in death.
I decided to run for office because I needed to speak up.
I cannot tell my daughter that her brother can make his own health care decisions, but she can’t. Also, I cannot allow my daughters to feel violated by their lack of bodily autonomy within this state. Lastly, I certainly cannot sit by and watch my daughters continue to be in the same kind of danger they are in now. I cannot, and I will not.
Debra Shigley is a lawyer, former reporter and mother of five. Shigley is currently a candidate for Georgia House District 47. The opinions expressed are her own.
