This story was updated on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 12:35 p.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in on a ProPublica report linking Georgia’s abortion law to a death ruled preventable by a state maternal mortality committee, saying former President Donald Trump’s actions against abortion rights are to blame.
“This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down,” she said, referencing the Supreme Court — which Trump appointed three conservative judges to — striking down the longstanding abortion rights law in 2022. That decision triggered Georgia’s six-week abortion ban to go into effect.
“In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans are preventing doctors from providing basic medical care,” Harris said in the statement early Tuesday.
The ProPublica story on Monday described how 28-year-old metro Atlanta woman Amber Nicole Thurman experienced complications after taking abortion pills shortly after Georgia’s abortion restrictions went into effect.
Georgia’s abortion law restricts the procedure she needed after around six weeks of pregnancy with some exceptions. Thurman’s condition worsened and she later died. ProPublica obtained a report from an official state committee that said that Thurman’s death was “preventable” and that the hospital’s delay had a “large” impact on the outcome. WABE has not independently confirmed the details of the committee’s ruling.
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media
