Harris Highlights Georgia Woman’s Death and ‘Trump Abortion Bans’ in Key State

ATLANTA — Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, visited Georgia on Friday to advocate for the restoration of abortion rights, prompted by a tragic report of a 28-year-old pregnant woman’s death in the state that highlighted the dangers posed by new abortion restrictions.

Georgia emerged as a pivotal battleground leading up to the 2024 election, a state that President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. Recent polling, however, indicates that Harris is trailing former President Donald Trump, who leads among likely voters in Georgia by 47% to 44%, according to a survey conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

During her speech at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, Harris pointed to the death of Amber Thurman as a clear illustration of the risks presented by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended federally protected abortion rights.

“We will speak her name – Amber Nicole Thurman,” Harris declared to an audience of approximately 600 supporters as she reflected on Thurman’s aspirations to attend nursing school. “She had her future all planned out, and it was her plan.”

In a powerful moment, the crowd echoed her words: “Amber Nicole Thurman.”

According to ProPublica, Thurman had arrived at a Georgia hospital in 2022 seeking a routine procedure to remove fetal tissue after complications arose from taking abortion pills. However, doctors hesitated to provide the necessary treatment due to the state’s stringent abortion law, which allows very few exceptions.

“Amber waited 20 hours – 20 excruciating hours – until finally she was in enough physical distress that her doctors thought they would be okay to treat her. But it was too late. She died of sepsis,” Harris recounted, emphasizing the urgency and severity of Thurman’s situation.

Throughout her campaign, Harris has directed strong criticism at Trump, holding him accountable for the overturning of Roe v. Wade through his three Supreme Court nominations. She contends that the court’s ruling has led 20 states to implement what she describes as “Trump abortion bans.”

During a virtual rally hosted by Oprah Winfrey on Thursday, Harris listened to Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, who emphasized that her daughter’s death was “preventable.” Harris pledged to honor Thurman’s memory, asserting that she would not allow her to be reduced to merely a statistic.

“I promised her, as she has asked, that we will make sure Amber is not just remembered as a statistic. So that 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,” Harris promised.

Harris expressed that the potential for such tragedies was well-known when the Supreme Court made its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“There is a word preventable, and there is another word, predictable,” Harris stated. “And the reality is, for every story we hear of the suffering under Trump abortion bans, there are so many other stories we’re not hearing where suffering is happening every day in our country.”

As the campaign unfolds, Harris aims to spotlight the real and often overlooked consequences of restrictive abortion laws, connecting them to the larger fight for reproductive rights in America.

Source: USA Today