Um, Georgia Just Shut Down the Committee That Reported Abortion Ban Deaths

“Confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals,” the state’s Department of Public Health commissioner wrote in a letter to the disbanded committee members.

By Kylie Cheung | November 21, 2024 | 5:27pm

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

Um, Georgia Just Shut Down the Committee That Reported Abortion Ban Deaths

In September, we learned about the first, confirmed abortion ban-induced deaths. ProPublica reported that two Georgia women—Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller—died in 2022 from being unable to receive timely emergency abortion care, as determined by the state’s maternal mortality committee, which shared some of its findings with the outlet.

On Thursday, ProPublica reported that, on November 8, Georgia’s Department of Public Health commissioner dismissed the entire maternal mortality committee, blaming committee members for violating policy and sharing their findings with the outlet. ProPublica notes that under Georgia law, all of the committee’s work is confidential; members don’t see personal details of individuals whose cases they review and are barred from sharing any of their findings with the public, or even hospitals and families.

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“Confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals,” Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the department commissioner, wrote in the letter addressed to now-former committee members. “Even though this disclosure was investigated, the investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information. Therefore, effective immediately the current MMRC is disbanded, and all member seats will be filled through a new application process.”

The letter also warned that, moving forward, the department will likely impose even more stringent restrictions on sharing information with the public, namely by changing “procedures for on-boarding committee members better ensuring confidentiality, committee oversight and MMRC organizational structure.”

Every state has a maternal mortality committee that reviews reported maternal deaths and their circumstances. Georgia’s committee comprised a diverse group of medical professionals including OB-GYNs, cardiologists, mental health care providers, a medical examiner, health policy experts and community advocates. The members are volunteers who receive a small honorarium.

In the era of abortion bans, maternal mortality committees have become increasingly politicized by anti-abortion activists and lawmakers who seek to conceal the immense public health toll of these laws. In 2023, Idaho allowed its maternal mortality review committee legislation to expire, effectively disbanding the committee; only in the wake of public outrage did they reestablish the committee earlier this year, but the state only appointed new members earlier this month. Idaho enforces one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation—its narrow, ineffective exception for the life of the pregnant person was at the center of a Supreme Court case this summer.

Elsewhere, in May, Texas appointed an anti-abortion doctor who’s previously argued that child rape victims as young as nine or 10 years old can safely carry a pregnancy to term to the state’s maternal review committee. The doctor, Dr. Ingrid Skop, also made clear in a recent interview that she recognizes the personhood of embryos. Meanwhile, when one community advocate who served on the state’s maternal mortality committee spoke out against the state for barring the committee from releasing data during an election year, she wasn’t reappointed this year.

ProPublica has already reported on at least four abortion ban-induced deaths, Thurman and Miller in Georgia and two in Texas. In September, the Gender Equity Policy Institute reported that maternal deaths in Texas increased by 56% between 2019 and 2022, compared to an 11% increase nationwide during the same time period. “There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality. All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban [SB 8, which took effect in September 2021] as the primary driver of this alarming increase,” the organization’s president said. The data also showed glaring racial disparities: The maternal mortality rate among white women in Texas doubled from 20 deaths per 100,000 to 39.1. Both Thurman and Miller were Black women.

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which is currently challenging Georgia’s ban in court, warned that disbanding Georgia’s maternal mortality committee will impede the public’s ability to get a clear image of the impacts of the state’s ban. The dismissed committee members “did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them,” Simpson told ProPublica. “To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?”