Lawrence O’Donnell Fights Back Tears as He Criticizes Trump, George W. Bush for Banning Curettage Procedures That Saved His Own Mother’s Life: ‘Women Are Dying’

Lawrence O’Donnell fought back tears as he criticized Donald Trump and George W. Bush for their role in legalizing and criminalizing the surgical procedure of dilation and curettage (D&C) that saved his mother’s life when he was a child. Describing how anti-abortion legislation has led to the injury and death of several American women, he drew attention to the recent case of Amber Nicole Thurman.

“When I was six years old, my mother underwent the same medical procedure that Amber Nicole Thurman desperately needed to live,” O’Donnell said on his MSNBC series “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”

“My mother had five healthy children, but she didn’t give up. She tried, she tried to have a sister for her only daughter, she tried to have another. And she had a miscarriage, and she routinely had D&Cs at a local hospital in Boston for years before abortion was legalized, because D&C has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.”

Watch the full clip below:

He added that the curettage and trying procedure is widely accepted, even in the Catholic school he attended as a child.

“Our beloved Monsignor Bradley knew that when mothers at St. Brendan’s miscarried, the doctors should provide them with all necessary care,” O’Donnell explained. “Catholic doctors who opposed abortion routinely performed the procedure. There was not a single Irish Catholic politician in Boston, including the mayor and district attorney, who ever tried to interfere with this medical procedure.”

When the host began to wonder how his mother’s fate might have been different had the D&C classes not been possible, he became moved.

“Their sisters were getting it done. Their daughters were getting it done routinely in anti-abortion Boston, because it has nothing to do with abortion. Nothing. If a politician interfered with that procedure and killed—” O’Donnell said before a break.

Then he stopped to draw in a breath, holding back tears and trying to pull himself together. “I killed my mother when I was six, who will tell that boy? Who will tell that six-year-old how his mother died and who is really responsible?”

Thurman, who died two years ago at age 28, has been called the nation’s first “preventable” abortion-related death since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 and abortion restrictions were approved nationwide. According to ProPublica, Thurman suffered from an infection after taking abortion pills that did not remove all fetal tissue from her body. When she went to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Atlanta for what’s known as a simple curettage procedure (which involves scraping away the lining of the uterus to remove tissue), she couldn’t get it because the procedure had been banned and criminalized, with few exceptions, earlier this summer. While doctors monitored her, she remained in the hospital in pain as her blood pressure began to drop and her organs began to fail. After waiting 20 hours, doctors began the procedure. But by that point, it was too late.

O’Donnell blamed Trump, who celebrated his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, and George W. Bush for helping to make procedures like D&C less accessible.

“George W. Bush, in his quiet retirement in Texas, made this routine medical procedure a crime,” O’Donnell said. “Donald Trump is proud to loudly claim credit for overturning Roe v. Wade and claiming that we all wanted it to happen, and he pretends there’s no blood on his hands. Donald Trump pretends he had nothing to do with making a procedure, a routine medical procedure like a D&C, a crime. Amber Nicole Thurman would be alive tonight if the Supreme Court hadn’t handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Without George W. Bush’s Supreme Court appointees, Amber Nicole Thurman would be alive tonight.”

He continued: “Donald Trump took away his rights that allowed him to say to his girlfriend, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ when she was pregnant. Donald Trump is telling American men, ‘You don’t have the choice that I’ve always had when someone told me they were pregnant.’ Donald Trump could say, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ every time, to his wife or girlfriend. And now people are dying. Women are dying. The choices that George W. Bush and Donald Trump made are killing people now.”

Watch the entire “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” segment in the video above.