DALLAS — Vice President Kamala Harris announced the creation of new national health and safety standards for maternal care in a new effort to save the lives of women giving birth and those in post-partum.
“Nearly every hospital in our country will soon be required to provide new mothers with delivery rooms that are fully stocked with life-saving medical equipment,” announced Vice President Harris. “It’s the first time.”
Texas has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the United States.
In 2019, the state legislature’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee issued its biennial report and said 118 women died during childbirth in Texas. Plus, complications in other pregnancies increased significantly over the last six years, from 58.2 in 2018 to 72.7 in 2020 for every 10,000 deliveries.
Black women in Texas are impacted more than any other ethnic group.
The state report said most of the deaths are preventable, likely one of the reasons the vice president unveiled the announcement in Texas.
Harris addressed 20,000 of her sorority sisters from the Alpha Kappa Alpha Boulé at the Dallas convention center, many of whom began lining up at 4:30 a.m. for the 11:00 a.m. speech.
Watch Vice President Kamala Harris full speech below:
The vice president took credit for the last four years and warned of the next four years if voters elect Donald Trump.
“The former president wants to pass a national abortion ban,” Vice President Harris said, “to outlaw abortion in every single state. But we will not let him. We fought too hard and too long to see our daughters grow up in a world with fewer rights than our mothers.”
Abortion is one of the main messages that Democrats are discussing on the campaign trail, with polls showing a growing majority of registered voters saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Many of Harris’ 20,000 sorority sisters, though, wanted to hear something the Vice President never brought up.
“Kamala Harris looked presidential today. She looked like she could get the job done on Day 1, if necessary,” said Nyanza Moore, Esq., an AKA from Houston. “In my heart of hearts, I think Biden will be the next president and if, for any reason, he’s not, Kamala will gracefully step inside with those pearls on.”
Harris’s speech was 18 minutes – a short but potentially important stop for the Biden – Harris re-election campaign as it tries to squelch talk of President Biden’s age and ability after Donald Trump has edged ahead in the polls.