Two women who had problems during their pregnancies are now running for president and want to talk about how limits on abortion affect people.
In the next two weeks, Amanda Zurawski and Kaitlyn Joshua will go to North Carolina and Wisconsin to meet with doctors, city officials, and voters.
The Biden team thinks that their stories are powerful first-hand accounts of how the medical risks for many women are growing as Republicans push for stricter abortion laws that make health care more difficult.
“The abortion topic is a very heavy topic, and I understand that,” Joshua told me.
She is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is 31 years old.
“But, I also understand and believe that the Biden and Harris administration is the only administration that could do anything remotely close to addressing the abortion bans,” he said, “and then also doing a deeper dive into research and understanding women’s health in general.”
Biden and other Democrats think that reproductive rights will be a big issue in the 2024 race.
The president and his allies blame Republican Donald Trump. It was Trump’s nominations for judges that led to the conservative majority ruling on the Supreme Court in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade’s protections for abortion rights.
The Supreme Court will hear a case this week that could have a big effect on how women get reproductive health care.
Republicans, like Trump, don’t know how to talk about the problem, if they can at all. Trump has both said that he is responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade and said that abortion should be allowed until 15 weeks. He said he would make a speech this week outlining his plans.
Since the high court’s decision, lawmakers across the state have passed a number of measures to protect or expand the right to abortion. In the 2022 midterm elections, women who wanted to have access to abortion went to the polls in large numbers, surprising the Democrats with their victory.
An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that about two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should be allowed.
About a quarter of people say abortion should always be allowed, and only about ten percent say it should always be illegal.
Joshua and her husband were thrilled to have a second child. However, at about 11 weeks, she began to bleed and be in a lot of pain. She thought she was having a miscarriage.
Joshua said that the doctors who checked her out at a Baton Rouge emergency room wouldn’t say for sure if she was miscarrying or talk to her about her medical choices. She was told to wait at home.
At a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., on October 18, 2022, President Joe Biden talks about access to abortion.
She went to a second hospital because the bleeding got worse. This time, the doctors sent her home and told her to call her doctor in a few days. In the end, a nurse confirmed that Joshua had lost the baby.
“Something that sounds as simple as dealing with a miscarriage can’t even be met with a true diagnosis anymore,” he said. “Isn’t it kind of crazy?” Also, it’s really scary.”
They will be in Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday. Biden wants to flip this state. The state passed a bill that makes most abortions illegal after 12 weeks, even though the Democratic governor wanted to veto it.
The following week, they will go to Wisconsin to see Milwaukee, Eau Claire, and Madison. Biden won this state in 2020. Republicans in the state Assembly tried to get a statewide referendum on the ballot in April that would have made it illegal to have an abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy. This would have been stricter than current law, but the legislative session finished without a vote in the state Senate.
Both women said that their own experiences made them want to get involved in politics.
People who support abortion rights got together all over North Carolina to mark 51 years since the US Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.
“People don’t get how bad it is, and they don’t get how bleak it is,” he said. “And so the more we continue to share our stories. … I think it’s really important to spread awareness and paint this picture.”
Zurawski, 37, or Austin, sued Texas last year because the state’s abortion rules made it impossible for her and other women to get medical care.
Following 18 months of fertility treatments, Zurawski gave birth early in her second trimester. After that, she was told her baby would not make it.
Doctors said they couldn’t help Zurawski get an abortion because she wasn’t in enough medical danger. She had to hold on.
After three days, her condition quickly got worse, and she got sepsis, which is a dangerous medical condition that happens when the body doesn’t handle an illness properly. She got stable long enough to give birth to a girl who didn’t live. She named her Willow. When that was over, Zurawski spent days in intensive care.
She just got back from a Disney World trip with her family and said, “I thought I’d be coming home from that trip with a 1-year-old and putting her down for a nap.”
“But instead, I’m doing this interview to help campaign for Biden,” he said. “It’s just the complete opposite world than I ever would have seen myself in.”
