Colleen O’Brien explains how one candidate’s abortion policy could’ve killed her

The vice presidential candidates in the 2024 election, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on Tuesday night engaged in a fast-moving, largely civil discussion on a wide range of issues, including abortion and reproductive health care.

Walz pounced on Vance repeatedly over abortion access and reproductive rights as the Ohio senator tried to argue that a state-by-state matrix of abortion laws is the ideal approach for the United States. Walz countered that a “basic right” for a woman should not be determined “by geography.”

“This is a very simple proposition: These are women’s decisions,” Walz said. “We trust women. We trust doctors.”

During a segment about the debate about reproductive health care and rights Wednesday morning, “Seattle’s Morning News” hosts Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien conversed on KIRO Newsradio about the issues and what came up during the debate.

When Dave asked Colleen, who is currently raising kids, if she heard anything that appealed to her, she was blunt in her response.

“No, because they didn’t offer solutions,” she said Wednesday morning. “They said a lot without giving any solid idea of how they’re going to do it. I heard Vance that he wants to make having children more attainable, more affordable. But how are they going to do that?”

Looking more at the debate, Walz sought to personalize the issue by referencing the death of Amber Thurman, who 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. She developed sepsis and died.

Rather than sidestep the reference, Vance at one point agreed with Walz that “Amber Thurman should still be alive.”

Vance steered the conversation to the GOP ticket’s proposals he said would help women and children economically, thus avoiding the need for terminating pregnancies. But Walz retorted that such policies — tax credits, expanded childcare aid, a more even economy — can be pursued while still allowing women to make their own decisions about abortion.

Tuesday’s VP debate: Walz, Vance go in depth on policy while attacking each other’s running mates

Minnesota’s abortion law

As the AP noted in its fact check of the debate, Vance also distorted the content of Minnesota’s abortion law.

“It says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion,” Vance said during the event Tuesday night.

The AP wrote Vance’s claim misrepresents a bill Walz signed into law in 2023, updating language about the care of newborns.

The new language uses the phrase “an infant who is born alive” instead of “a born alive infant as a result of an abortion.” It states that medical personnel are required to “care for the infant who is born alive” rather than “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.”

Both the current version of the law and the 2015 version that was amended state that “an infant who is born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.”

Infanticide is criminalized in every state, including Minnesota, and the bill does not change that.

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Colleen O’Brien: If I was forced to wait, I’d be dead

Dave asked Colleen about Vance saying he had lightened up on the abortion issue and that it may be time to come up with alternatives for women. Colleen made her position about Vance’s “alternatives” very clear as well.

“Well, women don’t want alternatives. We want autonomy over our health care,” Colleen said. “We don’t want men — politicians — to tell us what to do with our bodies. I’m not gonna wait for him to come up with a solution to my life.”

Colleen then went on to explain she had an ectopic pregnancy in 2017. As the Mayo Clinic explains, “An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus.” The clinic’s description adds that, “The fertilized egg can’t survive, and the growing tissue may cause life-threatening bleeding, if left untreated.”

She brought up her past experience because she noted that if it had happened to her now in a world where Roe vs. Wade is no longer the law of the land in more than a dozen U.S. states, she very well could have been in deep trouble.

“And so if I had to wait and wait and wait because I was in Texas or Georgia, I’d be dead too,” Colleen said.

Notes: Texas law allows doctors to terminate ectopic pregnancies. But, as The Texas Tribune explains, in a lawsuit filed during the summer, two Texas women said delayed care due to the state’s abortion laws endangered their fertility. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the law allows abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable in cases where a physician determines in their “reasonable medical judgment” “the pregnancy is medically futile.” It doesn’t yet specifically state ectopic pregnancies are considered “medically futile.” (A PDF from the Abortion Defense Network outlining Georgia’s laws can be seen here.)

Head here or click on the player below to hear the entire conversation from Wednesday’s “Seattle’s Morning News.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.