WASHINGTON (AP) — A recent series of campaign ads for Kamala Harris aims to highlight the increasingly threatening medical care for women since the fall of Roe v. Wade raises awareness by telling the story of a Texas woman who contracted a life-threatening infection when she was unable to receive proper treatment after a miscarriage and that she may no longer be able to have children.
In one ad, the woman, who identifies herself only as Ondrea, describes how excited she was to give birth to a girl, only to find out the baby would not survive because the water had broken too early. She was denied an abortion and eventually went into labor. “Immediately after she was born, I was in the worst pain of my life,” she says as she and her husband are pictured in their living room next to a framed photo of the baby’s ultrasound. Then she developed sepsis, a life-threatening pregnancy complication.
The ad is part of a final push by the Democratic nominee to highlight how health care for pregnant women — even those who never intended to terminate a pregnancy — has become increasingly unstable since then-President Donald Trump’s three judges appointed to the Supreme Court helped overturn abortion rights.
Ondrea blames Trump for her situation.
“It almost cost me my life and it will affect me for the rest of my life,” she says in the ad.
In another ad aimed at men, Ondrea’s husband Cesar says: “Baby crying at night? I would love to hear this every night. And now we may never get pregnant again.”
“There are rights and freedoms that we have had for generations that have simply been taken away from us.”
Harris will promote reproductive health care on Friday in Texas, a reliably Republican state that has one of the strictest bans in the country and where women have repeatedly sued or spoken out about a threatening lack of medical care.
When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on restricting access to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used in abortions are also used in the treatment of miscarriages. And in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women are increasingly unable to receive medical care until their condition has become life-threatening. In some states, doctors can be prosecuted for providing medical care.
Democrats warn that the devaluation of rights will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S., for example, have rejected Democratic efforts to protect or expand access to birth control.
Democrats hope the issue will motivate people to get involved in the deadlock presidential election and put Harris in the White House.
About six in 10 Americans believe their state should generally allow a person to have a legal abortion if they do not want to become pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or rejected attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.
Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights, constantly changing his positions or giving vague, contradictory and sometimes nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major tender point for Republicans in this year’s election.
In another commercial airing Wednesday night before Harris’ TV Town Hall on CNN, Ondrea stands in front of her bathroom mirror and stares at the massive scar on her stomach. There are photos of her in a hospital bed with her stomach cut open, while captions tell viewers her story. In 2022, she became pregnant but suffered a miscarriage at 16 weeks when her water broke.
Ondrea is Black. Black women are more likely to experience premature labor and other pregnancy complications and are also much more likely to die in childbirth in the U.S., where maternal mortality rates are rising.
The audio includes spliced clips of Trump discussing abortion.
“First of all, I’m the one who supported Roe v. Wade got rid of,” Trump says.
A moment later, another interviewer asks, “Do you believe in punishment for abortion?”
“There has to be punishment,” Trump replies.
As the viewer reads that Ondrea may no longer be able to have children after her ordeal, he hears Trump’s voice saying: “Women will be happy, confident and free.” They will no longer think about abortion.
