Kamala Harris will deliver a speech in the Atlanta area on Friday about Donald Trump’s role in the abortion ban that has now gripped much of the United States, days after news broke that two Georgia mothers died after being denied access to legal abortions and adequate medical care.
Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has made reproductive rights a central plank of her campaign. She has traveled the country to highlight the health care implications of the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade, which paved the way for nearly all abortions to be banned in more than a dozen states.
Harris has blamed the former president for Roe’s demise, as Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark decision. Her campaign has also criticized Republicans for repeatedly blocking Senate bills that would have guaranteed a federal right to in vitro fertilization, a popular fertility treatment whose future was in doubt after Roe was overturned.
The deaths of Georgia mothers Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller were first reported earlier this week by ProPublica and came after the state of Georgia enacted a ban on abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Board reviewed the cases of both women and deemed their deaths “preventable,” according to ProPublica.
Although Georgia allows abortion in medical emergencies, doctors across the country said the abortion exceptions were so vaguely worded that they were unworkable. Instead, doctors said they were forced to wait until patients were sick enough to legally intervene.
After Thurman took abortion pills to end a pregnancy in 2022, her body failed to expel all of the fetal tissue — a rare but potentially devastating complication, according to ProPublica. Doctors delayed a routine procedure on the 28-year-old for 20 hours, and she developed sepsis. Her heart stopped during emergency surgery.
“This young mother should be alive, raising her son and pursuing her dream of going to nursing school,” Harris said in a statement about Thurman earlier this week. “That’s exactly what we feared when Roe was struck.”
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Harris added: “These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
During his election campaign, Trump alternated between bragging about helping to overturn Roe, complaining about how Republicans’ hardline anti-abortion positions cost the Republicans elections, and flip-flopping on his own position on the procedure.
Abortion access has become a key issue for voters in the past two years, and Democrats are hoping that outrage over Roe will propel them to victory at the polls in November. Ten states, including key states Nevada and Arizona, are expected to hold referendums on abortion-related measures, which could boost turnout among the Democratic base.
