Why Kamala Harris went to Georgia to speak about reproductive rights
Vice President Kamala Harris directed her team this week to immediately schedule a visit to Georgia following a media report that revealed two deaths linked to the battleground state’s abortion restrictions, according to two sources familiar with the planning – a callback to the rapid response travel she’s done over the past year.
“She made it clear that it needed to happen this week,” one source told CNN.
It was reminiscent of the type of quickly arranged travel that placed Harris at the center of President Joe Biden’s then-reelection effort and an example of the types of moments her campaign has seized on to elevate – and amplify – issues it believes will galvanize voters and mobilize them to vote.
“She uses her platform to command the attention of the country to these issues. This is a natural succession of that,” a senior Harris adviser told CNN.
That was evident during Harris’ Friday appearance in Atlanta, where she forcefully went after former President Donald Trump, blaming him for the abortion bans in several states, including Georgia, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“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 but where suffering is happening every day in our country,” the vice president said.
Harris first coined the term “Trump abortion ban” during another rapid-response trip to Arizona earlier this year to tie the former president to new restrictions on the procedure in GOP-led states.
Before she replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic president ticket, Harris had traveled the country to offer forceful pushback over contentious Republican-led state legislation or laws on a range of issues.
Last year, for example, she delivered an impassioned speech in Nashville after Tennessee Republicans expelled two Black Democratic state legislators, who had protested on the state House floor against inaction on gun control following a mass shooting in the city.
That was later followed by a trip to Florida, where she slammed Republicans over a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools.
Harris advisers saw Friday’s trip to Georgia as emblematic of the same approach: rushing to the scene of issues of consequence and using her bully pulpit to put a spotlight on it, often in a state Democrats are trying to keep in play.
In Atlanta, Harris highlighted the story reported by nonprofit news outlet ProPublica of Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, who discovered she was pregnant with twins shortly after Georgia’s six-week abortion ban went into effect. Thurman tried to schedule a surgical abortion four hours away in North Carolina, but due to traffic, she was late to the appointment. Instead, she had a medication abortion – two pills approved to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks’ gestation – but developed rare, ultimately fatal complications.
Harris, who met with Thurman’s family Thursday evening at an online rally hosted by Oprah Winfrey, described their pain as “heartbreaking” and vowed to make sure Thurman’s name is not another statistic.
“Medical experts have now determined that Amber’s death was preventable, and through the pain and the grief of her mother, who courageously told her story, I promised her, as she has asked, that we will make sure Amber is not just remembered as a statistic,” Harris said.
ProPublica detailed another death that Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee called “preventable.” Candi Miller, a 41-year-old mother with several chronic conditions, died in 2022 after she experienced rare, treatable complications from a medication abortion. According to ProPublica, Miller’s family told a coroner she did not seek care because of laws around pregnancy and abortion. CNN has sought comment from Miller’s family.
Harris on Friday also went after Republicans opposed to abortion rights but who stress their support for exceptions to save a mother’s life.
“So, we’re saying that we’re going to create public policy that says that a doctor, a healthcare provider, will only kick in to give the care that somebody needs if they’re about to die?” she said.
The Harris campaign is hoping the political saliency of reproductive rights can help galvanize voters ahead of Election Day. As the latest New York Times/Siena College poll found, the vice president continues to lead Trump when it comes to whom likely voters trust to do a better job on abortion.
Campaign officials cited the vice president’s response on abortion as one of the strongest moments of her debate with Trump last week, based on internal data that suggested her remarks about miscarriages and victims of rape and incest resonated the most with undecided voters.
Last week, the Harris campaign launched an abortion-focused ad, capitalizing on what officials said was a pivotal exchange between Harris and Trump.
And on Wednesday, the campaign released a new ad featuring Hadley Duvall, a reproductive rights advocate and rape survivor who describes becoming pregnant at age 12 after her stepfather raped her following years of sexual abuse.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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