Recently Georgia resumed its Maternal Mortality Committee after dropping all 32 Its members last year. But government officials will not say who the members are.
The dismissals were in response to the Proopublica internal reports, in which the Committee spoke in detail about the “prevention” of the death of two women who failed to receive legitimate abortions or timely assistance after Georgia banned abortion.
In September PROPBLICA published stories about death Amber Turman and Kandy Miller. These were the first registered cases of women who died without care, limited by the state ban on abortion. Before these stories, the State Department of Public Health has released the names of the Committee members in Popublica. Now it is said that the release of names would be a violation of state legislation.
The law states that the committee’s work is confidential and that some records and reports received and created by the Committee do not apply to state records. The law does not say that the identity of the committee members is confidential. However, the press secretary of the Health Department Nancy Nidam said that the department “determined that the widespread defense of the confidentiality aimed at the committee should be extended to the members of the committee.” She did not answer questions about why in August the department could share the names of the committee members, but not now.
The recently appointed Committee, which examines the death of the mother and gives recommendations to improve the help of pregnant women, held the first meeting on February 21.
If the public does not know who is on the committee, it can create distrust of its conclusions, said Elizabeth Daus, director of maternal and reproductive health care in the Century Fund, a public political non -profit organization. She was a supporter of black mothers who die from pregnancy or birth reasons with a higher pace than other groups.
“If everything is confidential, there is no opportunity to be able to trust what it comes out of it,” Daus said. “They can completely ignore abortion. They can completely ignore races, racism, discrimination and say what they want to say.”
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Daus said these issues are especially important in Georgia. The state has one of the highest death levels, especially among black women who die twice as much as white women.
Truman and Miller stories have caused extensive indignation about the consequences of the ban on abortion; Georgia’s law prohibits the procedure in six weeks.
Truman, who traveled to North Carolina and received an abortion pills, died of sepsis after doctors in Georgia dragged the removal of the infected tissue left in her uterus. Her business and Others identified In Georgia and Texas show The cargo, confronted with women In the states that force hospitals and Doctors weigh criminal laws against abortion before assistance.
Less than two months after Prapublica published stories, the Commissioner of the Georgian Public Health Department, Dr. Kathleen Tumi, sent a letter to all members of the committee on November 8, saying that the information was inappropriate with an external source.
“Despite the fact that this disclosure was investigated, the investigation could not reveal which person (s) revealed confidential information,” Tommy wrote. “Thus, it acts immediately, the current MMRC blooms, and all places for participants will be filled through a new application process.”
This application process ended earlier this year. The Public Health Department refused to request the PROPULICA’s open records on the last name of new members on February 27, three weeks after the request. In response, the employee stated that 30 people were appointed to the council and attached the language from a letter that invited new members to the first meeting of the committee on February 21.
In all 50 states, as in other settlements, there are committees for the mother’s mortality. They study the deaths of pregnant women and new mothers to identify gaps in care and provide recommendations for improvement. Recently Propublica found that names Committee members in 18 states with abortion restriction were publicly available or available through a public record request.
Recently, some states have come under fire allegedly for politicizing the work of these committees.
The Mother’s Mortality Committee in Idaho was allowed at rest in 2023 after the conservative groups attacked the Medicaid extension recommendation for postpartum women. Since then, the state has revived the committee as an advisory body to the State Council of Medicine.
Also, in 2023, Texan legislators changed the State Committee more than a year after the member talked about the delay in the release of the report. She lost her place. Later, officials appointed a group of anti -Tenthic obstetrics, Doctor Ingrid Skop. Texas MMRC also does not consider death from 2022 or 2023, which covers the first one and a half years after Rooe v. Wade was overturned.
In a letter last year, rejecting the members of the Georgian Committee, Tommy wrote that the upheaval of the council would not postpone his work. In February, Nydam said the Ministry of Health staff continued their work and the committee was inactive.
“The MMRC work has not stopped,” Naida wrote in the email. “This continues with our staff who perform the cases they do independently before things go to MMRC.”
However, a person familiar with the work of the committee, who asked him not to name him from his long work with the Public Health Department, said the full committee had usually met every second month. Subcomites were more common for cases.
“By no means will the delay unless they meet every week,” she said.
MMRC Georgia began to determine death since 2023 when all members were fired.
Cavha is a crane and Cassandra Jamarila contributed to the report. Mariam Elba have made research.
