ATLANTA — Vice President Kamala Harris blasted former president Donald Trump in a passionate speech about reproductive health during an event Friday in Georgia, blaming him for the deaths of women who did not receive proper medical treatment because of strict abortion bans.
“This is a health-care crisis. And Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said during her most comprehensive speech on abortion since starting her presidential campaign two months ago. “He brags about overturning Roe v. Wade — in his own words, quote, ‘I did it and I’m proud to have done it.’ He says he is proud. Proud that women are dying, proud that doctors and nurses could be thrown in prison for administering care and proud that young women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers?”
The event was not originally on Harris’s schedule this week, but aides added a Georgia stop after a searing report by ProPublica documenting how a young mother died after waiting 20 hours for medical treatment at a hospital near Atlanta. State officials deemed the death of the 28-year-old woman, Amber Thurman, as “preventable,” and ProPublica’s report showcased how her inability to get abortion care in Georgia ultimately led to her death.
Speaking to a crowd of a few hundred people made up largely of women, Harris delivered a broad and damning onslaught against Trump and his Republican allies, criticizing them over in vitro fertilization, contraception and a failure to protect maternal health.
“These hypocrites want to start talking about this is in the best interest of women and children,” she said. “Well, where you been? Where you been when it comes to taking care of the women and children of America? Where you been? How dare they? How dare they?”
Thurman’s story has resonated with Harris, who has made reproductive rights one of her main points of focus in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. During her remarks, Harris described Thurman as a “vibrant” mother whose death was not only preventable but also “predictable.”
Talking about Thurman’s life plans being cut short, Harris said, “We will speak her name: Amber Nicole Thurman.”
“Amber Nicole Thurman,” the crowd repeated.
Harris said that there were “many other stories we’re not hearing” about other women “suffering” under restrictive laws. ProPublica this week revealed the case of another Black woman whose death was linked to Georgia’s abortion restrictions.
The issue of abortion has been a salient one for Democrats, and Harris is aiming to build on the momentum her party has built, chiefly by blaming Trump for the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision.
Over the past two years, every ballot measure that has sought to preserve or expand abortion access has been successful, while those that have sought to restrict abortion access have failed — even in states that skew conservative.
Some Democrats had feared that the power of the issue could wane in the 2024 presidential race — as the court decision fades into the past and as Trump attempts to moderate his position by expressing opposition to a national abortion ban. But Harris is seeking to keep abortion top of mind for voters by highlighting the ongoing impact of bans in states such as Georgia.
She often refers to “Trump abortion bans” and points out that a large percentage of women live in states where most abortions have been deemed illegal. She has regularly asserted that Trump would take steps as president to further restrict access to reproductive care, claiming that the former president’s allies have plans to limit abortions via executive action and to monitor women’s pregnancies. While some of the claims do not reflect Trump’s stated policy positions, Harris’s campaign has sought to focus voters’ attention on the real-world impact of actions the former president has already taken.
Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his term, and has boasted that their decision to vote to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion was a great accomplishment. Harris has repeatedly sought to make him pay for it.
During an online event with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday in Michigan, Harris heard the tearful testimony of family members of Thurman, who said they were still pained and angry over her 2022 death.
Thurman had traveled to North Carolina to seek an abortion in 2022 after Georgia’s ban went into effect, but got stuck in traffic and was unable to make her appointment. She faced rare complications after taking abortion pills and ended up at the hospital. Doctors failed to provide a routine treatment known as a D&C to remove remaining tissue, and she eventually developed sepsis and died.
“You’re looking at a mother that is broken,” said Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, adding that she wanted the world to know that her daughter’s death was preventable. Thurman’s two sisters also expressed their grief during the event, prompting Harris to blast Trump for their predicament.
“Think about what we’re doing in terms of saying that certain people who are in these state houses, and then, starting with the former president of the United States, think they’re in a better position than a doctor or a nurse to determine when their patient needs medical care,” she said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has defended the state’s abortion law, which limits the procedure after six weeks.
“Democrats and their allies in the left wing media continue to spread falsehoods and misinformation about Georgia’s LIFE Act,” he wrote Wednesday on X, linking to an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that argued the legislation did not cause Thurman’s death.
But in Cobb County, Ga., where Harris’s event took place, several of the people in attendance Friday said they were determined to vote in part because of the state’s abortion restrictions.
Shannon Stevenson, a professor of nursing at Emory University, was at the event in part to hear about the issue of maternal mortality.
“You look at Black and Brown women here in the state of Georgia, they’re two to three times more likely to be affected by maternal mortality than someone who looks like me and that’s not right,” said Stevenson, who is White. “There are reasons for that. I hope that a Harris-Walz administration would focus on the voices of the people who are being impacted the most.”
Georgia state Sen. Sonya Halpern (D), who was in attendance, said she was heartbroken for Thurman’s family.
“We should not be putting doctors in a position where they are trying to juxtapose their own and their duty to provide care,” she said. “And the legal line is very unclear here in Georgia.”
On Friday, Harris highlighted the fact that Trump said last month that he would vote against a ballot initiative that would make abortion legal in Florida until fetal viability. Florida and Georgia have similar abortion bans.
For his part, Trump has suggested that abortion probably will not be a major issue in the election, arguing falsely that everyone was happy with the Supreme Court’s decision and satisfied that the matter is now being handled at the state level.
He has suggested that he supports exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk. He has also blasted Democrats by saying they support late-term abortions and has pressed Harris to say whether she supports any limitations on the procedure.
On Friday, she made a direct appeal to women, pledging to defend them from “outrageous” judgment from politicians.
“So to those women, to those families, I say on behalf of what I believe, we all say we see you and you are not alone,” she said. “And we are all here standing with you, standing with you.”
Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
