Vice President Kamala Harris returns to Atlanta on Friday to speak about her plans to expand abortion rights if she defeats former President Donald Trump in November.
Harris plans to discuss what she says are the consequences of the overturning of Roe v. Wade two years ago, which guaranteed a national right to abortion for nearly 50 years, according to senior campaign officials.
The Democratic presidential nominee has consistently tied Trump to the abortion bans that have taken effect across the country in the years since the U.S. Supreme Court decision. In her Atlanta remarks, Harris is expected to link the deaths of two Georgia women to GOP-backed anti-abortion policies that took effect shortly before they died.
Georgia bans most abortions once a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity, typically around six weeks of pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. The state allows later abortions to be performed in the cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly or to save the life of the mother.
“The loss of any life is always a tragedy,” GOP spokeswoman Morgan Ackley said ahead of Harris’ visit. “Unfortunately, it’s clear the dangerous misinformation spread by Kamala Harris and Georgia Democrats, in addition to the lack of accountability from the media, is responsible for placing patient lives at risk. Georgia not only established clear exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, but also included providing necessary care in the event of a medical emergency. There was no reason that doctors cannot act swiftly to protect the lives of mothers.”
Harris’ second visit to the state within a month comes days after ProPublica reported two women’s abortion-related deaths months after Georgia’s law limiting the procedure took effect.
Amber Thurman died after waiting for roughly 20 hours for a hospital to treat medical complications stemming from abortion pills. Candi Miller ordered abortion pills online and tried to terminate her pregnancy at home. An autopsy found fetal tissue that hadn’t been expelled. Both deaths were reported in detail by ProPublica this week.
Members of Thurman’s family joined Harris on Thursday during a livestreamed town hall event hosted by Oprah Winfrey.
According to a ProPublica report published Monday, Thurman sought the hospital’s help after traveling to North Carolina and taking an abortion pill in 2022. She was about nine weeks pregnant with twins at the time. When the abortion didn’t complete, Thurman developed sepsis. Twenty hours after she arrived at the emergency room in Henry County, her heart stopped on the operating table, ProPublica reported.
Thurman’s death took place two weeks after Georgia’s anti-abortion law took effect in 2022.
A second ProPublica article published Wednesday documented the death of Miller, a 41-year-old mother of three who also died in the months after Georgia’s abortion ban took place.
Doctors told Miller she might not survive another pregnancy after giving birth to her youngest child three years prior, family members told ProPublica, so when she learned she was pregnant, she ordered abortion pills online from overseas and tried to terminate her pregnancy at home.
Miller’s family said she was afraid of going to doctors for help once it was clear the abortion was incomplete. She died at home a few days later.
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