According to a ProPublica report: “She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear (fetal tissue) from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison. Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed … as doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail. It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late.”