For the first time since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris has given a speech focused squarely on abortion rights
Kamala Harris blasted Donald Trump as a threat to women’s freedoms and their very lives, warning in a speech in the battleground state of Georgia on Friday that Republicans would continue to choke off access to abortion if he returns to the White House.
The Democratic vice president’s visit came days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.
Such deaths, Harris said, were not only preventable but predictable because of laws that have been implemented since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Although Georgia’s six-week ban allows abortions in early pregnancy to save a mother’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion for doctors about when they’re allowed to provide care.
“Good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying a healthcare provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?” Harris asked.
Harris shared the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion when she became pregnant again.
“She had her future all planned out”, Harris said. “And it was her plan. What she wanted to do for herself, for her son, for their future.”
However, Thurman waited more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D & C to clear out remaining tissue after taking abortion pills. She developed sepsis and died.
“She was loved”, Harris said. “And she should be alive today.”
Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights ever since the Supreme Court’s decision more than two years ago, but Friday’s speech in Atlanta was her first focused squarely on the issue since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
