WASHINGTON — For the first time since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris was set to give a speech focused squarely on abortion rights at an event in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.

“It is a time of mourning, but it’s also a time where great action can come out of this,” said Park Cannon, a Georgia state lawmaker and a doula who provides guidance and support to pregnant woman during labor.

ProPublica reported this week that two Georgia women died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.

Harris, who was in the Atlanta area Friday to address the issue, heard Thursday night from the mother and sisters of one of the women who died.

During a livestreamed campaign event hosted by Oprah Winfrey and attended by Harris, Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Thurman, tearfully told viewers that “people around the world need to know that this was preventable.”

Williams said she initially did not want to go public about her daughter’s 2022 death but decided it was important for people to understand that her daughter “was not a statistic. She was loved.”

Harris told the family: “I’m just so sorry. The courage you all have shown is extraordinary. This story is a story that is, sadly, not the only story of what has been happening since these bans have taken place.”

Dozens of pregnant patients have faced delayed care or been turned away from hospitals amid medical emergencies over the past two years, a violation of federal law, since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Violations occurred in states with and without abortion bans. But an AP analysis this year found an immediate spike in some states with abortion bans, including Texas, since the ruling.

Harris was the administration’s chief spokesperson on abortion rights when President Joe Biden was running for reelection, headlining rallies across the nation, and she is the highest-ranking U.S. official to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Since becoming the nominee, though, she’s broadened her focus to a wider range of issues.

In-person early voting began Friday in three states — Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia — and Harris’ campaign is hoping that reproductive rights will be a strong motivator for Democrats. Republican nominee Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to take credit for appointing three of the conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.

About half of voters say abortion is one of the most important issues as they consider their vote — but it’s more important to women who are registered voters (6 in 10) than to male voters (4 in 10), according to a new AP-NORC poll.

In Georgia, Thurman had waited more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D&C to clear out remaining tissue after taking abortion pills, even as she developed sepsis. Family members told ProPublica that the other woman who died was afraid to seek help for the pain she was experiencing after taking abortion pills. She also had a lethal combination of painkillers in her system.

Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN in Georgia, said the six-week ban has caused a “massive environment of fear and confusion and uncertainty” for the medical community. “Medicine is a gray area,” but laws “are a blunt instrument.”

She said Republican legislators who are now blaming hospitals and doctors are seeing the ramifications of the laws play out.

“The law is preventing us from being able to provide evidence-based care without having to think about the risk of criminal prosecution,” she said.

Anti-abortion advocates and doctors argued Friday that the women’s deaths raise questions around the safety of taking abortion pills at home without management by a doctor. Advocates have been pushing for tougher restrictions on the pill for years, most recently at the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed attempt to limit the drug’s availability.

“Women think that it’s completely safe for them to go online and order these drugs,” Christina Francis, a Fort Wayne, Indiana, OB-GYN who opposes abortion, told reporters Friday.

Harris was scheduled to make a campaign stop later Friday in Wisconsin after her visit to Georgia. Trump had no public events scheduled for Friday.