Vice President Harris will travel to Georgia on Friday to highlight her support for abortion rights, likely focusing on the stories of two women whose deaths she blames on the state’s abortion ban passed by Republicans after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“The Vice President will highlight the stark contrast between her commitment to fight for reproductive freedom and the devastating and deadly consequences of Trump Abortion Bans,” her campaign said in an announcement.
Georgia is a battleground state, and Harris’s visit comes after ProPublica reported on the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller.
Thurman died of complications from taking medication abortion. She waited 20 hours in a suburban Atlanta hospital after seeking medical care for an incomplete abortion, and, according to a state medical board review, died largely because of the hospital’s delay in treating her.
Miller died after declining to seek medical care for complications from abortion medication. Her family said she was afraid of getting medical help once it was clear the abortion was incomplete.
“This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down,” Harris said of Thurman in a Tuesday statement. “In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans are preventing doctors from providing basic medical care. Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again.”
Georgia law bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks into a pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. Thurman’s death took place two weeks after the law took effect in 2022.
Former President Trump repeatedly brags about his role in getting Roe overturned, and the speech is part of the Harris campaign’s effort to tie the consequences of state abortion bans directly back to him.
Harris unveiled a new ad Wednesday featuring testimony from Hadley Duvall, a Kentucky woman who was impregnated as a child by her stepfather.
Duvall has become an outspoken advocate of reproductive rights, especially in her home state, where abortion is completely banned without exceptions.
She is joining the Harris campaign’s reproductive rights bus tour on a stop in Pennsylvania, and she spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
The Trump campaign responded to the ProPublica report by saying that it’s “unclear” why Thurman’s life wasn’t protected in the situation because Georgia law includes exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Abortion rights advocates argue exception rules are often vague and doctors are reluctant to perform emergency abortions out of fear of being prosecuted.
