ATLANTA– Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump as a threat to women’s freedoms and even their lives. In a speech in Georgia on Friday, she warned that Republicans would continue to restrict access to abortion if Trump returned to the White House.
The Democratic vice president’s visit came days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died because they did not receive proper medical treatment for complications that arose from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.
Such deaths, Harris said, were not only preventable but predictable, thanks to laws enacted since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. While Georgia’s six-week ban allows abortions in early pregnancy to save a mother’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion for doctors about when they can provide care.
“Good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider is only going to provide that care if you’re about to die?” Harris asked.
Harris told the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion when she became pregnant again.
“She had her future all mapped out,” Harris said. “And it was her plan. What she wanted to do for herself, for her son, for their future.”
Thurman, however, waited more than 20 hours in the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D&C to remove remaining tissue after taking abortion pills. She developed sepsis and died.
“She was loved,” Harris said. “And she should be alive today.”
Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights since the Supreme Court ruling more than two years ago, but her speech in Atlanta on Friday was the first to focus specifically on the issue since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic front-runner.
On Thursday evening, Harris heard from Thurman’s mother and sisters.
During a livestreamed campaign event hosted by Oprah Winfrey and attended by Harris, Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, tearfully told viewers that “people around the world need to know that this could have been prevented.” Williams said she initially didn’t want to go public about her daughter’s death in 2022, but ultimately decided it was important for people to understand that her daughter “wasn’t a statistic. She was loved.”
Harris told the family: “I am so sorry. The courage you have all shown is extraordinary.”
She spoke about Thurman at a second rally on Friday, before a thunderous crowd of thousands in the swing state of Wisconsin. Speaking in the Democratic stronghold and state capital of Madison, she called the bans imposed in more than 20 states “immoral” and warned of another Trump term.
“We’re not going back,” Harris said.
Trump has repeatedly said he was proud to have helped overturn Roe v. Wade by appointing conservative justices during his tenure. He has also said he supports exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said that since Georgia has such exemptions, “it is unclear why doctors have not acted quickly to protect the lives of mothers.”
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 been pushing for tighter restrictions on the pills for years, most recently before the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed attempt to limit availability.
“Women think it’s perfectly safe for them to go online and order these medications,” Christina Francis, a gynecologist in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who opposes abortion, told reporters Friday.
Since 2000, the FDA has approved a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol as a safe way to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks gestation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has eliminated an in-person visit to receive the drugs. Reported complications are rare, and surgical intervention to terminate the pregnancy is required in 2.6% of cases.
Dozens of pregnant patients have had to deal with delayed care or denied from hospitals during medical emergencies over the past two years, a violation of federal law since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Violations occurred in states with and without abortion bans. But an AP analysis earlier this year found an immediate spike in some states with abortion bans, including Texas, after the ruling.
Dr. Nisha Verma, a gynecologist in Georgia, said the six-week ban has created a “tremendous atmosphere of fear, confusion and uncertainty” in the medical community.
She said Republican lawmakers now blaming hospitals and doctors are seeing the impact of the laws in real time.
“The law prevents us from providing evidence-based care without having to think about the risk of criminal prosecution,” she said.
Of personal early voting Starting Friday in three states — Virginia, South Dakota and Minnesota — Harris’ campaign is hoping reproductive rights will be a strong motivator for Democrats. The party points to a string of election victories when abortion rights were on the ballot, and advocates believe Harris is a strong messenger.
About half of voters say abortion is a top issue as they consider their vote — but it’s more important to registered voters than to male voters, according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 female voters say abortion policy is a top issue in their vote in the upcoming election, compared with about 4 in 10 male voters.
The gender gap doesn’t stop there.
About 6 in 10 female voters trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, while about 2 in 10 women trust Trump more. Half of male voters trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, while about a third trust Trump more than Harris.
___ Long and Seitz reported from Washington. AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report.