Kamala Harris called Donald Trump a threat to women’s freedoms and lives, warning in a speech in Georgia on Friday that Republicans would crack down on abortion access if he returned to the White House.
The Democratic vice president’s visit comes days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after failing to receive proper medical treatment for complications from using abortion pills to end their pregnancies.
Harris said such deaths were not only preventable but predictable thanks to laws put in place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Although Georgia’s six-week ban allows for early pregnancy abortions to save a woman’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion among doctors about when they can provide care.
“Is it good policy, logical policy, ethical policy and humane policy to say that a health care provider will only begin to provide that care when you are dying?” Harris asked.
Harris told the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion when she became pregnant.
“He was planning for his future,” Harris said. “And that was his plan. What he wanted to do for himself, for his son, for his future.”
However, Thurman waited more than 20 hours in the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D&C to remove waste after taking abortion pills. She developed sepsis and died.
“He was loved,” Harris said. “And he should be alive today.”
Harris has been outspoken about abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s decision more than two years ago, but Friday’s speech marked the first time she focused on the issue since replacing President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Harris, who was in the Atlanta area on Friday to handle the case, heard from the mother and sisters of one of the women who died Thursday night.
During a live campaign appearance hosted by Oprah Winfrey and attended by Harris, Amber Thurman’s mother Shanette Williams tearfully told the audience that “people all over the world need to know that this is preventable.” Williams said she initially didn’t want to make her daughter’s death public in 2022, but ultimately decided it was important for people to know that her daughter “was not a statistic. She was loved.”
Harris told the family: “I am so sorry. The courage you have all shown is extraordinary.”
Trump has repeatedly said he would help overturn Roe v. Wade by appointing a conservative attorney general during his presidency. He has also said he supports exceptions to the abortion ban in cases of rape, consanguineous marriage or the life of the woman.
Carolyn Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said that because Georgia had such exceptions, “it’s unclear why doctors did not act more quickly to save the mothers’ lives.”
Abortion advocates and doctors argued Friday that the women’s deaths raise questions about the safety of taking abortion pills at home without a doctor’s supervision. Advocates have pushed for years for tighter restrictions on the drug, most recently before the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed attempt to limit access.
“Women think it’s perfectly safe for them to go online and order these pills,” anti-abortion obstetrician-gynecologist Christina Francis of Fort Wayne, Indiana, told reporters Friday.
Since 2000, the FDA has approved a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol as a safe way to terminate a pregnancy up to 10 weeks gestation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA waived the requirement for in-person visits for prescription drugs. Reported complications are rare, requiring surgical intervention to terminate the pregnancy in 2.6% of cases.
Dozens of pregnant patients have been delayed or turned away from hospitals over the past two years in violation of federal law. The violations occurred in states with and without abortion bans. But an AP analysis this year found that some states with abortion bans, including Texas, saw immediate increases after the ruling.
Dr. Nisha Verma, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia, said the six-week ban has created a “tremendous environment of fear and uncertainty” for the medical community.
“Medicine is a gray area,” he said. Laws are “blunt instruments.”
He said Republican lawmakers, who now blame hospitals and doctors, are seeing the consequences of the laws in real time.
“The law does not allow us to provide evidence-based care without considering the risk of criminal prosecution,” he said.
Early voting in three states — Virginia, South Dakota and Minnesota — began Friday, and Harris’ campaign is hoping reproductive rights will be a strong boost for Democrats.
Nearly half of voters say abortion is one of the most important issues when considering their vote, but it is more important to women who are registered voters than to men, according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 voters say abortion policy is one of the most important issues they will vote on in the upcoming election, compared with about 4 in 10 male voters.
The gender gap does not end there.
About 6 in 10 voters trust Harris more than Trump to handle the abortion issue, while about 2 in 10 women trust Trump more. Half of male voters trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, and nearly a third trust Trump more than Harris.
Democrats point to a series of electoral victories when abortion rights were on the ballot, and advocates believe Harris is a strong messenger. In a debate on Sept. 10, she gave a forceful response to the fact that the ban affected even women who had never intended to end a pregnancy.
Harris has a long history of advocating for reproductive health issues, especially the health of Black mothers. After she topped the ticket, others traveled the country to advocate for reproductive rights, including her husband, Doug Emhoff.
Long, Seitz and Boak write for The Associated Press. Boak reported from Atlanta, Long and Seitz from Washington. AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVaux contributed to this report.
