Vice President Kamala Harris blamed the "Trump abortion ban" for the deaths of two women in Georgia because the former president appointed the three conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
Revving up her attacks on Trump over abortion rights, Harris during a Friday campaign rally in Atlanta said the Republican presidential nominee is a threat to every woman's health and would back a national abortion ban if elected in November.
She focused her remarks on the deaths of two Georgia women who were denied care or were afraid to seek help and died at home because of the state's ban on abortions after six weeks, as reported this week by ProPublica.
"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," said Harris, Politico reported.
"The reality is, for every story we hear of the suffering under Trump abortion bans, there are so many of the stories we're not hearing, but where suffering is happening every day in our country," the vice president said.
Trump in an all-caps posting on Truth Social said soon women will "NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION" because the Supreme Court's ruling returned the issue to the states.
Harris said the women's deaths were preventable but predictable because laws like the one in Georgia have doctors fearing whether they will be prosecuted criminally for providing life-saving care for women.
She highlighted the case of Amber Thurman, who suffered complications after taking an abortion pill.
Thurman, 28, went to a hospital in Atlanta for help through a procedure called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.
"But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison," ProPublica reported.
When doctors decided to operate on her 20 hours later, it was too late.
"Good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying a healthcare provider will only start providing that care when you're about to die?" Harris asked.
Trump, who boasts at campaign rallies about appointing the conservative justices that helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, said he supports exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. But that line can be unclear for physicians fearful about losing their license to practice medicine or be prosecuted.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, told the Associated Press that because Georgia has such exceptions in place, "it's unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect the lives of mothers."
