Harris Slams G.O.P. Abortion Bans as a Painful ‘Health Care Crisis’

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered an impassioned speech about abortion rights on Friday in Georgia, accusing Republicans who support abortion bans of causing unnecessary suffering as she described the far-reaching, painful and even deadly consequences of such policies.

“These hypocrites want to start talking about, ‘This is in the best interests of women and children,’” Ms. Harris said in Atlanta as she denounced both abortion bans and the struggles some women face in order to receive proper care during and after their pregnancies. “Well, where you been? Where you been when it comes to taking care of the women and children of America? Where you been? How dare they?”

Ms. Harris’s speech in Georgia, a top battleground state where she has narrowly trailed in polls, signaled a more combative and nimble approach in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign. On Monday, ProPublica reported that the deaths of two women in the state were a result of delayed treatment after receiving medication abortions, episodes that occurred in the months after Georgia passed a 2022 law banning abortion at six weeks. Two days later, Ms. Harris’s campaign announced that she would travel to the state to highlight their stories.

“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Ms. Harris said to the crowd of roughly 600 people at a performing arts center in Cobb County, an area that has flipped from a Republican stronghold to safely Democratic territory. She described tragic outcomes linked to abortion restrictions as both preventable and predictable, and expressed outrage and indignation at the way that she said women seeking abortion care were treated.

Women are “being made to feel as though they did