Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday denounced former President Trump for promoting extreme abortion bans after the release of a shocking new report calling the deaths of two Georgia mothers “preventable.”
The Democratic presidential candidate criticized Trump for supporting restrictive abortion laws like Georgia’s, which a state panel said played a “significant” role in the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller.
“Amber waited 20 hours, agonizing hours, until she was in enough physical distress that her doctors felt they could (legally) treat her,” Harris told hundreds of supporters in suburban Atlanta. “But they couldn’t save her.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” Harris added.
Harris derided Trump and his vice presidential running mate JD Vance as “hypocrites” and worse, for claiming that their anti-abortion policies were pro-family.
“It’s not Donald Trump or the government that should be telling women what to do with their bodies,” she said. “How dare he?”
The speech came a day after Harris held an emotional meeting with Thurman’s family during a town hall meeting with Oprah Winfrey on live television.
Harris choked back emotion after hearing the grieving family tell the story of his death.
“I’m so sorry,” Harris told Thurman’s mother.
Thurman, the mother of a young boy, died in 2022 after suffering rare complications from abortion drugs.
She went to the hospital after suffering severe symptoms, but doctors did not immediately treat her, fearing she would face criminal charges under Georgia’s new Republican law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
A state medical board recently ruled Thurman’s death was “preventable” and said delays in providing care played a “significant” role in her death, Pro Publica reported this week.
Miller, 41, died at home after taking abortion drugs while pregnant. According to her relatives, she refused to go to the hospital for treatment for fear of being criminally prosecuted under the law.
The state panel also called Miller’s death “preventable.”
Democrats see abortion rights as a key issue for them in the 2024 election, and Harris has repeatedly hammered Trump on the issue.
Democrats have enjoyed a consistent streak of victories in elections where abortion was a key issue since 2022, when the conservative Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide.
Voters in several states, including Republican states like Kansas and Ohio, have voted in favor of abortion rights, and several other states are voting on similar ballot measures in November.
Trump has been put on the defensive by attacks on abortion rights. He has already bragged about appointing the three conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe.
But he has recently stressed that he believes laws passed by his Republican allies, such as Georgia’s that ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, are too harsh and that he also supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Despite Trump’s claims that he has a more moderate stance on abortion, he still says he will vote against a Florida referendum measure that would restore abortion rights and repeal the Sunshine State’s six-week ban.
