Louisiana native Kaitlyn Joshua will speak at the Democratic National Convention Monday to share her story of being denied health care after a miscarriage in the wake of the state's near-total abortion ban.
Joshua is one of three women who will tell their harrowing pregnancy stories and call for the restoration of abortion rights on Monday evening, the same night President Joe Biden is scheduled to address the convention to pitch Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency.
“I’m speaking for Harris because my life depends on it,” said Joshua. “I know she is the only person running for office that could restore our reproductive freedoms or the little bit that we had, and then do more.”
Joshua has been a prominent critic of abortion bans since WWNO, NPR and KFF Health News first broke her story in late 2020. She’s spoken against Louisiana’s ban and the overturning of Roe v. Wade at legislative hearings and reproductive rights rallies, alongside Nancy Davis, who was denied an abortion just weeks after the state’s ban took effect after learning her fetus was developing without a skull.
Joshua and Davis, both Black women living in Baton Rouge, have spent the last year campaigning for Biden and now Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris had been Biden’s most outspoken advocate for abortion rights and reproductive health, and her ascent to the top of the ticket has put abortion even more in the spotlight for November’s election.
