Harris speaks about abortion in Georgia, highlighting deaths of two Georgia women

Atlanta – Vice President Kamala Harris‘ visit to Georgia Friday is centered around one thing: women’s reproductive rights.

The visit by Harris follows ProPublica’s investigation into two women who recently died in the state. It found their deaths could have been prevented, but their medical care was hindered by Georgia’s six-week abortion ban. Harris highlighted the stories of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, the two women at the center of ProPublica’s report, and argued cases like theirs would intensify if former President Donald Trump is reelected. 

According to ProPublica, Thurman, who was pregnant, took abortion pills, but did not expel all of the fetal tissue from her body, a rare complication. She needed a routine dilation and curettage to remove the tissue, but the procedure was now a felony in Georgia. A doctor who performed the procedure could be prosecuted and sentenced to prison. ProPublica reported that doctors monitored “her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail.” By the time they operated, it was too late.

Harris hammered Trump over his support for abortion ban with an exception to save the life of the mother. 

“Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action,” Harris said, “You know, the other folks, Trump and his running mate? They’re talking about, ‘Yeah, I do believe in an exception to save a mother’s life.’ Okay, let’s break that down shall we? So, we are saying that we’re going to create public policy that says that a doctor, a health care provider, will only kick in to give the care that somebody needs if they’re about to die? Think about what we are saying right now. You’re saying good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy, is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?”

Thurman’s family met with Harris at her “Unite for America” rally Thursday with Oprah Winfrey in Michigan. On Friday, Harris talked about her conversation with Thurman’s mother and sisters. She said they told her about “how terribly they miss her.” 

“Their pain is heartbreaking,” Harris said. She added that Thurman’s mother said that she “can’t stop thinking” about the word “preventable” because “medical experts have now determined that Amber’s death was preventable.” Harris also said she promised Thurman’s mother she’d make sure her daughter is not remembered “just as a statistic.”

In Michigan Thursday, Harris reminded voters that “Trump chose three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would [undo] the protections of Roe v Wade, and they did as he intended.” 

Anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America accused Harris of attempting to use these stories to “score political points.”

“We mourn the senseless loss of Amber, Candi, and their unborn children. We agree their deaths were preventable. But let’s be absolutely clear: Georgia’s law and every pro-life state law calls on doctors to act in circumstances just like theirs. If abortion advocates weren’t spreading misinformation and confusion to score political points, it’s possible the outcome would have been different,” said Katie Daniel, the group’s state policy director.

In Atlanta, Harris also called out Trump’s plans to vote as a Florida citizen against a state ballot measure that would protect abortion rights and restore the limits set under Roe v. Wade. Like Georgia, Florida has a six-week abortion ban in place.

“And now, Donald Trump says he will personally cast his vote in Florida, which is where he now lives, to support their extreme abortion ban, just like the one that is here in Georgia,” she said.

Asked about his vote during the September debate between Harris and Trump, Trump falsely claimed Democratic-run states and Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, support abortion in the ninth month, and argued there was wide bipartisan support for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

“[Abortion access is] the vote of the people now. It’s not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it,” he said during the debate. “And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six justices.” 

One Harris campaign official said its work in Georgia  has focused on tying reproductive rights to the state’s Black maternal mortality rate.

Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates for Black women according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Both Thurman and Miller were black.

This is Harris’ third trip to the state as a presidential candidate, and her eighth this year as vice president, according to a CBS News tracker. 

A number of her trips have been focused on women’s reproductive rights. Surrogates for the campaign are currently on a “Reproductive Freedom Tour” that began in Florida and is passing through the swing states. Throughout her vice presidency, Harris has traveled to states that were imposing abortion restrictions or bans, such as Arizona, Indiana and Iowa. 

In March, she became the first vice president to visit an abortion provider when she made a trip to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota.