Vice President Kamala Harris opportunistically took advantage on Friday of the deaths of two Georgia mothers to slam the state’s “Trump abortion ban,” a term she coined to criticize her presidential opponent’s stance on abortion.
“Now we know that at least two women — and those are only the stories we know — here in the state of Georgia died because of a Trump abortion ban,” Harris said during a 24-minute speech in Atlanta.
Earlier this week, ProPublica reported that Amber Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, died in 2022 as a direct result of Georgia Republicans’ six-week abortion ban following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that year. The investigative news outlet claimed Thurman died due to a delayed abortion and that Miller died in her home because she was afraid to seek an abortion after the ban took effect. However, the reality turns out to be more complicated.
The two women took chemical-abortion pills and, as a result, suffered severe complications with their respective pregnancies. In both cases, some fetal tissue remained in their uteruses. A dilation-and-curettage (D&C) procedure was needed to remove the septic fetal tissue. While Thurman underwent the surgery, Miller did not and tried to self-manage the abortion.
A Georgia committee of maternal-health experts deemed these deaths “preventable,” blaming the state’s pro-life heartbeat law. The committee concluded that the delayed D&C procedure had a “large” impact on Thurman’s fatal outcome and said Miller’s death was not caused by the abortion medication.
There is still much unknown about their tragic deaths, though, given that the full reviews of individual patient cases are not made public.
Despite this, Harris amplified ProPublica‘s reporting on X and linked Thurman’s death to the so-called Trump abortion bans. She did the same during a Friday afternoon speech in Atlanta, where both mothers died two years ago.
“We will speak her name: Amber Nicole Thurman,” Harris said, leading the crowd to repeat after her: “Amber Nicole Thurman.” Notably, she did not directly name Miller.
On Thursday, the Democratic presidential nominee met with Thurman’s family at her Michigan rally with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. During her speech on Friday, Harris said she spoke with Thurman’s sisters and mother.
“I promised her, as she has asked, that we will make sure Amber is not just remembered as a statistic,” Harris said. “People will know she was a mother and a daughter and a sister and that she was loved and that she should be alive today.”
The event marked the vice president’s first speech solely dedicated to abortion since she replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket. She hopes to mobilize voters on the issue, contrasting herself with former president Donald Trump’s abortion policies.
“Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action,” Harris falsely claimed. Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, as Dr. Christina Francis pointed out in a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed, explicitly enables doctors “to intervene in cases of medical emergencies or if the fetus has no detectable heartbeat,” both of which were true of Thurman’s situation.
While agreeing that their deaths were completely preventable, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America state policy director Katie Daniel noted how “Georgia’s law and every pro-life state law calls on doctors to act in circumstances just like theirs.”
Daniel accused abortion advocates of exploiting the stories of Thurman and Miller: “If abortion advocates weren’t spreading misinformation and confusion to score political points, it’s possible the outcome would have been different.”
During her Friday remarks, Harris pushed back against Trump and his running mate, Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio), for supporting an abortion ban with exceptions to save a mother’s life in cases of rape or incest.
“They’re talking about, ‘Yeah, I do believe in an exception to save a mother’s life.’ Okay, let’s break that down shall we?” the Democratic candidate asked. “Think about what we are saying right now. You’re saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health-care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die.”
Harris furthermore claimed that Trump would sign a national abortion ban should he be reelected, despite the Republican nominee’s saying during last week’s presidential debate that he wouldn’t sign one. She also cited Trump’s past statements taking credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Trump has repeatedly boasted that he was responsible for sending the abortion issue back to the states.
Meanwhile, Harris reiterated she would prevent a federal abortion ban from becoming law and “proudly” sign a bill to “restore reproductive freedoms” if she wins the November election.