2 women impacted by abortion restrictions, campaign for Biden in North Carolina
NORTH CAROLINA -- Two women who experienced complications during pregnancy are now campaigning for President Joe Biden to talk about the impact of abortion restrictions.
Amanda Zurawski and Kaitlyn Joshua will travel to North Carolina and Wisconsin over the next two weeks to meet with doctors, local officials and voters.
The Biden campaign sees their stories as potent firsthand accounts of the growing medical peril for many women as abortion restrictions pushed by Republicans complicate health care.
"The abortion topic is a very heavy topic, and I understand that," Joshua said.
She is 31 years old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
"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," Joshua said, "and then also doing a deeper dive into research and understanding women's health in general."
Biden and Democrats see reproductive health as a major driver for the 2024 election.
The president and his proxies blame Republican Donald Trump, whose judicial nominations paved the way for the Supreme Court's conservative majority decision in 2022 that overturned abortion rights codified by Roe v. Wade.
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Republicans, including Trump, are struggling to figure out how to talk about the issue, if at all. Trump has both taken credit for the overturning of Roe and suggested abortion should be legal until 15 weeks. He has promised to make a statement outlining his policies this week.
Since the high court's ruling, voters have approved several statewide ballot initiatives to preserve or expand the right to abortion. Support for abortion access drove women to the polls during the 2022 midterm elections, delivering Democrats' unexpected success.
About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Only about one-quarter say abortion should always be legal and only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal.
Joshua and her husband were excited to be having a second baby. But, she started to experience bleeding and serious pain at about 11 weeks. She suspected she was miscarrying.
At an emergency room in Baton Rouge, doctors who examined her wouldn't confirm if she was miscarrying, Joshua said, or discuss her medical options. She was sent home to wait.
The bleeding worsened, and she went to a second hospital where again, doctors sent her home and told her to contact her doctor in a few days. A midwife eventually confirmed that Joshua had miscarried.
"Something that sounds as simple as dealing with a miscarriage can't even be met with a true diagnosis anymore," Joshua said. "It's kind of wild, right? And it's really frightening."
Joshua and Zurawski will be in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, a state Biden hopes to flip. The state has enacted a law banning most abortions after 12 weeks, overriding a veto from the Democratic governor.
The week after that, they will visit Milwaukee, Eau Claire and Madison, Wisconsin, a state Biden won in 2020. Republicans in the state Assembly tried to set up a statewide referendum on the April ballot banning abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy - more restrictive than current law - but the legislative session ended without a state Senate vote.
Both women said they felt compelled to get into politics after their own experiences.
WATCH | Abortion rights advocates call for greater access to mark Roe v. Wade anniversary
"People don't get how bad it is, and they don't get how bleak it is," Zurawski 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 after she and other women could not get medical care because of the state's abortion laws.
Zurawski went into early labor in her second trimester, after 18 months of fertility treatments. She was then told her baby would not survive.
Doctors said they could not intervene to provide an abortion because Zurawski wasn't in enough medical danger. She had to wait.
Three days later, her condition rapidly worsened, and she developed sepsis, a dangerous medical condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection. She stabilized long enough to deliver a stillborn girl, whom she named Willow. Zurawski then spent days in intensive care.
She recently returned from a family trip to Disney World and said, "I thought I'd be coming home from that trip with a 1-year-old and be putting her down for a nap."
"But instead, I'm doing this interview to help campaign for Biden," Zurawski said. "It's just the complete opposite world than I ever would have seen myself in."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
