Texas Woman Recalls Nearly Dying After Being Denied Abortion In New Harris Ad

A new ad from the Harris-Walz campaign depicts the heart-wrenching story of a Texas couple who was denied an emergency abortion under the state’s extreme abortion ban — and places the blame squarely at the feet of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The couple, identified only as Ondrea and Ceasar, got pregnant in the fall of 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protections. Ondrea was 16 weeks pregnant when her water broke and doctors told her that her child would not survive, according to the ad.

In the ad, Ondrea says she was denied abortion care under the state’s near-total ban, which threatens physicians who violate the law with felony charges punishable by up to life in prison. A minute-long cut of the ad, which the campaign shared on social media, will run on TV channels ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ CNN town hall on Wednesday night.

Ondrea’s child died, and she was rushed into a six-hour emergency surgery because she had developed sepsis, according to the ad. Doctors made a large incision from her sternum to her pelvis in order to save her life. The video includes jarring photos of Ondrea in the hospital and her surgical wound, which remained open for weeks because it was too large to be closed.

Several parts of the ad include audio from Trump boasting about killing Roe and saying he believes women should be punished for getting abortions.

“I do feel like I was robbed [of] a chance to grieve my daughter, because immediately after her birth I was in the worst pain of my life,” Ondrea says in the ad.

“I went from burying my daughter to fighting for my life. I felt like I’m not gonna get to say goodbye. I remember thinking, just, God, allow me to be peaceful when I go.”

The Harris campaign released the ad ahead of her visit to Houston, Texas, where she will host an event alongside women who have had to navigate the state’s abortion ban. Texas has a history of imposing creative anti-abortion legislation: The state enacted a six-week abortion ban nearly a year before Roe v. Wade fell, forcing pregnant people to experience a post-Roe world long before the rest of the country.

“He did this to me,” Ondrea says in the ad, referring to Trump.

“This only happened to me because Roe versus Wade was overturned,” she continued. “I almost died because I was denied a medical abortion.”

It is the first time the Texas couple have shared their story publicly.

The ad is part of a larger series that focuses on reproductive rights and hammers Trump for his anti-abortion record. The campaign also released a longer-form video of the couple’s story, as well as a shorter cut focused on Ceasar that will target men – a voting bloc Harris has been weak with.

“A baby crying at night? Like, I would love to hear that every night,” Caesar says. “And now we may never, ever be able to get pregnant again. There are rights and freedoms that we had for generations and they just got ripped away.”

Watch a longer version of the ad below.

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