A Georgia woman’s family thanked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) over a moment in Tuesday’s presidential debate in which he mentioned her death.
In the vice presidential debate, Walz talked about Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old woman who died from an infection following a rare complication from taking medication abortion. Per a ProPublica report, she waited 20 hours in an Atlanta-area hospital after seeking medical care due to an incomplete abortion before doctors tried to give her a needed treatment.
“She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state,” said Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, during the debate. “Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth. The [fact of the] matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights, as basic as the right to control your own body, is determined on geography? There’s a very real chance, had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today.”
In a statement Tuesday, Thurman’s family said they “commend Governor Tim Walz for telling Amber’s story and for his unwavering commitment to defending women’s reproductive rights.”
“Amber’s tragic death was a direct result of Georgia’s archaic and dangerously restrictive abortion laws, which denied her the life-saving care she so desperately needed,” the statement continued. “We strongly condemn the republican platform that seeks to further restrict women’s access to necessary healthcare under the false guise of protection.”
When reached for comment, the Republican National Committee (RNC) directed The Hill to a statement from Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“President Trump has always supported exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which Georgia’s law provides,” Leavitt said in the statement. “With those exceptions in place, it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect Amber Thurman’s life.”
Vice President Harris and Walz have made abortion rights a central plank of their campaign, hitting former President Trump for appointing Supreme Court justices that eventually helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.