Vice President Kamala Harris is emphasizing the consequences of former President Donald Trump‘s actions after a Georgia woman died because she was delayed lifesaving care due to Trump’s abortion ban.
RELATED: Donald Trump Says Abortion Should Be Left To States, Doesn’t Endorse National Ban
On Monday (September 16), ProPublica reported that in August 2022, a 28-year-old medical assistant and Black single mother in Georgia died from a severe infection after a hospital delayed a routine medical procedure that had been outlawed under that state’s six-week abortion ban. She was left waiting 20 hours to be treated with an abortion pill.
Amber Nicole Thurman‘s death is believed to be the first confirmed maternal fatality linked to Donald Trump’s abortion ban. However, that’s not to say that she is the only person to have died as a consequence of an abortion ban, just the first case to be officially confirmed. In January 1973, Roe v. Wade allowed women the federal constitutional right to abortion, but in June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling, ending the historic and landmark women’s rights law.
Thurman’s death was caused by an infection she contracted in 2022 and because she couldn’t receive appropriate maternal care due to the post-Roe v. Wade bans, it cost her her life. A state committee tasked with reviewing pregnancy-related deaths officially deemed her death “preventable.”
The Georgia woman’s death occurred just two weeks after Georgia’s strict abortion ban was enacted following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide abortion rights. Trump had appointed three of the justices who made that decision and has continued to repeatedly spread his belief that states should decide abortion laws.
On Tuesday (September 17), Vice President Kamala Harris said that the death of a young Georgia woman, due to the abortion ban, shows the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions. In a statement, VP Harris said, “This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school.”
She continued, “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
VP Harris also mentioned Thurman’s “tragic” case just hours later during her sit-down with a panel of journalists with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). Because the issue of women’s rights and the abortion law is on the ballot in this year’s election, VP Harris is likely to continue raising awareness about Thurman’s death through Election Day. If elected president, Harris said she would restore Roe v. Wade protections, which looks to be a difficult achievement as it would require a federal law to be passed with bipartisan support from Congress.
Addressing the claims of the Georgia woman’s death being connected to the abortion ban he pushed, Donald Trump’s campaign released a statement on Tuesday (September 17) that blames the hospital for failing to provide life-saving treatment. In a statement, Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump has always supported exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which Georgia’s law provides. With those exceptions in place, it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect Amber Thurman’s life.”
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