Shirts are set up for sale as preparations are made before the upcoming Democratic National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Chicago. – Kaitlyn Joshua, of Baton Rouge, told her story to the Democratic National Convention Monday night of being turned away from two hospitals because abortion was banned in Louisiana.
She was one of three women who have been traveling the nation for the Harris For President Campaign on a Reproductive Rights Tour. Joshua said Monday before the speech that she retells her painful story to bring awareness to the direct impacts that overturning abortion rights has on mothers trying to access basic maternal health care. In the fall of 2022, Joshua was 11 weeks pregnant with her second child when she began to feel severe pain.
She was refused treatment at two hospital emergency rooms and because of Louisiana’s abortion ban the doctors could not say she was having a miscarriage. “I was bleeding so much, I feared for my life,” Joshua said. Restoring abortion rights nationwide has been key plank in the Democratic politics since the U.
S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the federal right for women to seek to end their pregnancies and turned that decision over to individual states. Fourteen states, including Louisiana, have banned abortions.
Former President Donald Trump says in interviews and on the campaign trail that he is responsible for overturing Roe vs Wade because he nominated the three justices to the Supreme Court who made up the 6-3 majority. Republicans have long supported limiting access for abortions and some seek a nationwide ban. Trump says the restrictions should be decided by the state.
One of the three women addressing the convention was Amanda Zurawski, of Austin, Texas. She almost died during the 18th week of her pregnancy. She developed sepsis as a result of the medical care allowed under the Texas abortion ban.
Her husband, Josh, said he feared for his wife’s life. “The doctors and nurses couldn’t help. I was lucky,” Amanda Zurawski said.
She and her husband filed a legal challenge to the state’s restrictions. She was a guest of President Joe Biden at his State of the Union address. The third woman was Hadley Duvall of Kentucky, who was raped as a 12-year-old by her step father.
She miscarried. “What is beautiful about a child having to carry a parent’s child,” she said. Duvall was central in a campaign commercial for Democratic Kentucky Gov.
Andy Beshear. He spoke next. He said Duvall’s testimony — and opposition to that state’s abortion ban — helped him as a Democrat become governor in a red state.
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