The Vice President Kamala Harris He criticized the former president Donald Trump in an impassioned speech about reproductive rights during an event Friday in Georgia, blaming him for the deaths of women who did not receive adequate medical treatment due to strict abortion bans.
“This is a health crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said during her most comprehensive speech on abortion rights since he began his presidential campaign two months ago.
“He boasts that he overturned Roe v. Wade, in his own words, quote, ‘I did it and I’m proud that I did it. ’ He says he’s proud. Proud that women are dying, proud that doctors and nurses can be jailed for providing care, and proud that young women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers,” Harris noted.
Harris echoed the stories of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, two Georgia women who lost their lives after not being able to receive the medical treatment they needed due to complications arising from taking abortion pillscases that were brought to light this week by the ProPublica portal.
According to ProPublica, Their deaths could have been avoided. The two women They were unable to receive the medical care they needed for a Georgia law banning abortion at six weeks gestation, an initiative that was approved after the Supreme Court overturned the Roe vs. Wade ruling that protected abortion for more than half a century.
“We know that two women, and these are just the stories we know, died here in Georgia because of one of Trump’s abortion bans,” Harris said.
“These hypocrites want to start talking about how this is what’s best for women and children,” Harris said. “Well, where have you been? Where have you been when it comes to taking care of America’s women and children? Where have you been? How dare they? How dare they?”
One in three women in America lives in a state with a Trump Abortion Ban.
And these hypocrites want to start talking about how this is in the best interest of women and children.
How dare they? pic.twitter.com/x3wRqShixJ
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 20, 2024
Kamala Harris’ full speech in Georgia can be seen here.
The death of Amber Nicole Thurman
The vice president told in detail the story of Amber Nicole Thurman, died in 2022 at the age of 28 and was described as an “ambitious” woman who planned to study nursing, raise her six-year-old son and who had just rented an apartment in a gated community with a swimming pool for her son.
When Thurman discovered she was pregnant, she decided to have an abortion. However, since abortion is banned in Georgia after six weeks, she traveled to North Carolina to receive the necessary care.
There she was prescribed abortion pills, but on her return to Georgia she suffered complications. In the hospital she had to wait more than 20 hours in pain until her life was in danger enough for doctors to intervene. Unfortunately, it was too late and he died from an infection.
“His last words to his mother were: ‘Promise me that you will take care of my son,’” Harris recounted, visibly moved.
On Thursday night, Harris met during an event with Oprah Winfrey with Thurman’s mother, Shanette Williams, to whom she promised that Amber will not be remembered only as a “statistic”“She should be alive today!” the vice president said.
The death of Candi Miller
The other case that came to light this week by ProPublica is that of Candi Miller, mother of three children.
Miller decided to abort because Doctors had warned her that her health (she suffered from lupus, diabetes and hypertension) could worsen if she had another child. Unable to obtain an abortion in Georgia, she ordered pills online and, after days of suffering, died in her sleep.
“The reality is that for every story we hear about suffering under Trump’s abortion bans, there are many more we don’t hear. There are untold numbers of people who are suffering, women who are made to feel like they have done something wrong, like they are criminals,” Harris said.
“But,” he continued emphatically, “I tell them: You are not alone, we are all here supporting you. You are not alone!”
Harris called Trump the “architect” of this health crisis and assured that his rival “is proud that women are dying, proud that doctors and nurses can be imprisoned” simply by administering medical care.
“Trump and his running mate will say, ‘But I believe in exceptions to save the mother’s life.’ Well, let’s look at that, shall we? Let’s look at that,” Harris said“Are we saying that we’re going to create a public policy that says that a doctor, a health care provider, is only going to step in to provide the care that someone needs if they’re about to die? Think about what we’re saying right now.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned the ‘Roe vs Wade’ ruling, 21 of the country’s 50 states have banned or restricted abortionIn most cases, there are no exceptions for rape or incest, and abortion is only permitted when the mother’s life is in danger.
This situation has caused chaos and has put at risk the lives of women who are denied medical care if they are pregnant.
Kate Kelly, senior director of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, She commented: “Reproductive health in this country is in crisis. The deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller were entirely preventable. Six out of ten women who receive abortion care are already mothers. Amber and Candi were mothers who left their children behind because the state of Georgia banned the care they needed.”
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Pregnancy should not be a death sentence. It is inconceivable that mothers die because they cannot access a simple procedure that can be performed in any hospital in this country.”
Harris has been a leading voice in the defense of reproductive rightssince the Supreme Court’s anti-abortion ruling in June 2022. Friday’s speech in the key state of Georgia is the first he has given focused exclusively on that issue since he began his campaign.
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