Vice President Kamala Harris has launched a new television advertisement featuring the family of Amber Thurman, the Georgia woman who died from abortion-related complications in the weeks after the state’s fetal cardiac law took effect.
Thurman died in August 2022 following a 20-hour wait for treatment at a metro Atlanta hospital after traveling to North Carolina to get an abortion. A review by the state’s maternal mortality review board determined Thurman’s death was preventable, according to a report from the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica.
“What happened to her was preventable,” Thurman’s mother, Shanette Williams, says in the ad, which will air in Georgia beginning Wednesday. “My daughter is gone because of what Donald Trump did.”
Harris and other Democrats are intensifying their focus on GOP positions on abortion as November nears, with polls in Georgia and other battleground states showing broad support for expanding access to the procedure. Harris has consistently tied the restrictions in Georgia and other states to Trump.
Georgia bans most abortions once a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity, typically about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. The state allows later abortions to be performed in the cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly or to save the life of the mother, though state data shows abortions performed under one of the exceptions is incredibly rare.
“I’ve never been a political person, never,” Williams said. “I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she showed me that she really cared. I felt her sincerity and I felt her strength.”
This is at least the third time Thurman’s family has appeared in support of Harris’ presidential campaign. Three days after the ProPublica article published, Williams and Thurman’s two older sisters appeared in Michigan during a livestreamed event with Harris and Oprah Winfrey.
The family also participated in a news conference Tuesday with Harris surrogates U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms ahead of a Fox News town hall that was billed as focusing on “women’s issues.”
“Because of Aug. 19 (2022), we’ve been thrown into an arena where we have to do something to honor Amber,” Williams said through tears during the news conference.
