For Immediate Release
February 12, 2025
Contact: Kelly Rimar kelly@freeandjust.us
Shanette Williams, Mother of Amber Nicole Thurman Joins Patient Advocates and Health Care Providers to Spotlight How Abortion Bans Target Black Communities
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Shanette Williams, whose daughter Amber Nicole Thurman lost her life as a result of Georgia’s abortion ban, patient storytellers, and health care providers from across the country joined Free & Just to spotlight how abortion bans disproportionately affect Black women and families. In the years since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, dozens of states have moved to ban abortion and restrict access to reproductive health care, with Black women bearing the heaviest burden of these attacks.
According to data from the National Partnership for Women & Families and In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, 57% of Black women ages 15 to 49 live in states with abortion bans or serious threats to abortion access.
The fall of Roe has also made pregnancy more dangerous, particularly for Black women. According to new data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than women from other racial and ethnic groups. The maternal mortality rate for every other race or ethnic group tracked in the report declined during the research period.
“Black maternal health is a crisis in this country. When it comes to reproductive health care — whether it's safe abortion care, prenatal care, or even just being listened to by a doctor — we are too often ignored, dismissed, and denied the care we need,” said Nancy Davis, an advocate from Louisiana who was forced to travel out-of-state to terminate a pregnancy after being denied care. “Black women deserve better, our voices matter, our lives matter, and we will not stop fighting until real change happens.” In 2022, Davis founded the Nancy Davis Foundation, which aids individuals who have endured trauma due to a prenatal developmental defect during pregnancy and advocates for reproductive justice.
“We’re putting lives at risk when we went to medical school to heal, not harm people. It makes sense that physicians are leaving places with abortion bans and restrictions because they cannot practice the full scope of the care they dedicated themselves to provide,” said Dr. DeShawn Taylor, an award-winning gynecologist and family planning specialist who owns the Desert Star Institute for Family Planning in Phoenix, Arizona. “Black women and babies have been most affected by adverse health outcomes in this country, but discrimination and lack of access to necessary health care has the potential to impact anyone.”
“I cannot tell you how devastating, heartbreaking, and painful losing my daughter has been –, the remorse, the grief, has sometimes overwhelmed me,” said Shanette Williams, whose daughter Amber Nicole Thurman lost her life in Georgia after being denied medical care. “You have women and mothers that are going through trauma, that are going through grief because politics are stopping women from making choices about their bodies.” Shanette continues to share Amber’s story in hopes that no other family will endure the loss of a loved one to an abortion ban. In November, following reporting from ProPublica, officials in Georgia dismissed all members of the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which investigates the deaths of pregnant women across the state.
If you are interested in speaking with any of the participants in the press event, please contact kelly@freeandjust.us.
You can watch the virtual press event here, and learn more about how Republican officials plan to restrict reproductive freedom here.
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Free & Just is fighting to stop attacks on reproductive freedom and rights. We’re working with people across the country to share real stories to show the devastating consequences of attacks on our reproductive freedom. We all deserve the right to control our bodies and lives. That’s why we’re sharing our stories, raising our voices, and fighting for our future.
