During a recent interview, Kamala Harris said that she doesn’t support any religious exemptions for abortion. Asked if she’d consider religious exemptions, she said, “I don’t think that we should make any exemptions when we’re talking about the fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”
The wording is important. She was asked about religious exemptions, but she responded that she wouldn’t “make any concessions” on abortion.
You always hear that Republicans are extremists on abortion. Six-week bans are considered extreme. But nobody will call her an extremist for rejecting all restrictions on abortion.
To stay within the parameter of the question, no religious exemptions means forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
It also means forcing Christian charities like Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortion. In several Supreme Court cases, even Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by Barack Obama, has ruled that religious exemptions apply to nonprofit and for-profit organizations on abortion and contraception.
The laws that protect these religious exemptions were signed by Bill Clinton. An Obama-appointed justice favors these laws. Even the center-left disagrees with Harris. She’s a far-left extremist.
But again, she did not specify that there should not be any religious exemptions. She said there should be no “concessions” whatsoever. What does that mean?
It means that she favors late-term abortion, even partial-birth abortion which is currently federally banned. In the Senate, she opposed a bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks—which is roughly the period allowed under Roe v. Wade. Which means that she doesn’t think that Roe goes far enough.
In comparison, Donald Trump is an absolute centrist on abortion. He has defended overturning Roe because it sent the issue back to the states, where it belongs. He has said that he prefers 15-week bans, but he has pledged to veto any bill that would ban abortion nationally so that the states could decide.
This is where the average American stands.
According to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans support abortion during the first trimester (the first 12 weeks of pregnancy). This support goes down to 37 percent during the second trimester (weeks 13 to 26) and 22 percent for the third trimester (week 27 until birth). So most Americans are more or less where Trump is.
35 percent of Americans want no restrictions on abortion, which is where Harris is. 12 percent want to ban abortion under all circumstances. 50 percent favor abortion to be legal in some circumstances, which is where Trump is.
But there is something more important at play here. In one breath, Harris called abortion a fundamental right and rejected religious freedom. Whatever you think of abortion, America was not founded upon abortion rights. It was founded upon religious freedom.
Harris’s objection to religious freedom shows that she is hostile to the idea that gave birth to our country. It means that she is willing to sell out our Constitutional ideals for San Francisco values and to get a few more votes.
We can only assume that, with the right amount of donations from ActBlue donors, she’d also sell out freedom of speech to these same extremists.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
