The family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia mother who died while waiting for an emergency room to treat medical complications after she took abortion pills, thanked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for mentioning her during Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate.

Thurman died in 2022, weeks after Georgia enacted a strict abortion ban, according to reporting by ProPublica. She waited roughly 20 hours, even developing sepsis, before emergency room doctors agreed to perform the medical procedure known as a D&C that she needed after developing complications from taking abortion pills.

“Tonight, we commend Governor @Tim_Walz for telling Amber’s story and for his unwavering commitment to defending women’s reproductive rights. Amber’s tragic death was a direct result of Georgia’s archaic and dangerously restrictive abortion laws, which denied her the life-saving care she so desperately needed,” the family said in a statement released on X through their attorney Benjamin Crump.

“The fight for justice for Amber is a fight for every woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and access the medical care she needs. We will not stop until these dangerous laws are repealed, and no more lives are lost.”

Walz highlighted Minnesota’s law that protects abortion rights, saying “There’s a very real chance had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today.”

Vance, meanwhile, appeared to soften some his abortion views on the debate stage. The vice presidential candidate said that growing up in Middletown, Ohio he knew many women who had unplanned pregnancies and opted for an abortion.

One close friend, Vance said, “told me something a couple of years ago that she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.”

Vance said that he wants Republicans to offer “more options” to women to raise families.

The mother of one six-year-old boy sat in pain in a hospital bed, while doctors monitored her infection. They watched as her blood pressure began sinking, and her organs began to fail according to reporting by ProPublica. After 20 hours doctors finally decided to operate on Thurman, but by then it was too late. Thurman, who worked as a medical assistant, had her sights set on going to nursing school, should not have died according to a state committee.

The committee, which includes 10 medical doctors, are responsible for examining pregnancy related deaths in order to improve maternal health. The experts on the committee deemed her death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing critical care had a “large” impact on the fatal outcome, according to ProPublica.

Since Thurmans death, her family had only known that she had died from an infection caused by “retained products of conception.” They only learned that her death was deemed preventable after ProPublica began their investigation. Her family is now focused on caring for Thurman’s 6-year-old son. Thurman’s mother told ProPublica the last words her daughter said to her were “promise me you’ll take care of my son.”

Vice President Kamala Harris during a live stream event with Oprah Winfrey heard Thurmans’ story from her family who were in attendance and Harris used Thurman’s story as an example of what reproductive rights look like under a Trump presidency.

“Just to step back in terms of how we got here. The former President chose three members of the United States Supreme Court, with the intention that would overdue the protections of Roe v Wade. And they did as he intended and in state after state including yours, these abortion bans have been passed that criminalize healthcare providers and some cases prison for life,” Harris said at the event.

Thurman’s mother Shanette spoke during the live stream and said “Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family, and we would’ve done whatever to get our baby the help that she needed.”

A federal judge in Georgia recently struck down the law that may have prevented Thurman from receiving the life saving care she needed. The law had only gone into effect two-weeks prior to Thurman’s death and many critics of the law say that medical professionals have been hesitant to act in these situations for fear of being prosecuted under the the strict ban. Doctors under the law could receive up to a decade in prison for each violation.

That law is now on hold after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney struck down the law on Monday. McBurney wrote in his order that “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.”

McBurney added that his ruling means the law in the state returns to what it was before the law was passed in 2019, allowing abortions until roughly 20 weeks into a pregnancy. “When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene,” McBurney wrote. The state of Georgia is likely to appeal this ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court.