Beyoncé brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight
Ondrea Cummings, a Texas woman who appeared in a new Harris campaign, became emotional as she shared her harrowing experience after a miscarriage at 16 weeks and needing an emergency abortion that she was denied under the state’s law. A video played before her remarks showed her with a wound and scars that stretched down her body, from her breast to her pelvis, after a six-hour surgery in which she said doctors had to cut open her torso in order to save her life.
“I was finally close enough to death to deserve healthcare in Texas,” said Amanda Zurawski, who has been a powerful surrogate for Harris on the campaign trail.
Todd Ivey, an OB-GYN in Houston, addressed the crowd surrounded by a team of doctors and medical professionals in white coats. He emphasized the challenges of administering care to patients under a law that threatens physicians with jail time for performing abortions. Since the Texas’s abortion law took effect the state’s infant mortality has risen.
Read more at The Guardian
In a rare political speech, Beyoncé endorses Kamala Harris at a Houston rally
Some of the speakers included Ondrea Cummings, the San Antonio woman who shared her story in full for the first time, telling the crowd that she developed sepsis after she could not receive treatment because of Texas’ abortion ban; Amanda and Josh Zurawski, the Texas couple who were the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Texas’ abortion bans; Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman, the Georgia woman who died after being unable to receive timely medical care because of the state’s abortion ban; and Yesenia Gamez, a military wife who voiced her concerns about the impact of abortion bans on IVF in a Harris campaign ad.
Read more at 19th News
Michelle Obama hits the trail, warning what a Trump presidency would mean for women’s health
Obama expanded beyond abortion, suggesting that increasingly limited access to types of women’s health care could also have serious ramifications for miscarriage care, cancer screenings and access to medical professionals.
“Your wife or mother could be the ones at higher risk of dying from undiagnosed cervical cancer because they have no access to regular gynecological care,” she said.
Read more at NBC News
Michelle Obama blasts Trump for ‘gross incompetence’ at Harris’s Michigan rally
“I am asking y’all, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” she said, her voice swelling with emotion. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.”
Abortion bans, she argued, affected men as well. If something happened during a pregnancy or a delivery and the doctor was prevented from providing care, “you will be the one praying that it’s not too late. You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something, and then there is the tragic but very real possibility that in the worst-case scenario, you just might be the one holding flowers at the funeral,” she said.
Read more at The Guardian