Kamala Harris rejects religious exemptions for abortion laws: ‘That cannot be negotiable’

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 23, 2024 / 14:35 pm

Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed that she would oppose religious exemptions in abortion laws if elected president and emphasized that she would not make concessions to Republicans on the issue.

The Democratic nominee made the comments in a Tuesday interview when NBC News’ Hallie Jackson asked Harris “what concessions would be on the table” when considering federal laws on abortion and specifically whether she would consider “religious exemptions.”

“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris responded.

Jackson followed up on the question, asking whether the vice president would extend “an olive branch” to moderate Republicans who support legal abortion but do not support all of Harris’ abortion policies. But the Democratic nominee also rejected this, saying abortion “cannot be negotiable.”

“I’m not gonna engage in hypotheticals because we could go on a variety of scenarios,” Harris said. “Let’s just start with a fundamental fact, a basic freedom has been taken from the women of America: the freedom to make decisions about their own body. And that cannot be negotiable, which is that we need to put back in the protections of Roe v. Wade.”

Harris continued, adding that former president Donald Trump “allowed Roe v. Wade to be overturned” and said: “So that’s my point about what is nonnegotiable — it has to be that we agree that it is so fundamental that we allow women the ability with their doctor, with, if they choose, talking with their faith leader, to be able to make these decisions and not have the government tell her what to do.”

The vice president’s opposition to religious freedom exemptions regarding abortion laws is consistent with her record as a senator. In 2019, Harris introduced the Do No Harm Act, which would have scaled back religious liberty exemptions to government mandates that exist in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Under the proposed law, which failed to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, religious employers would not be exempt from covering “any health care item or service” that is required under federal law. This would have eliminated religious exemptions to any coverage related to abortion, contraception, transgender surgeries, or any other health care issue.

Harris introduced the proposal when the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor sought a religious exemption to an Affordable Care Act rule that mandated coverage of drugs that could induce abortions. Although the sisters were initially denied, they obtained their religious exemption with a victory in the United States Supreme Court thanks to the exemptions that Harris was trying to remove from federal law.

Opposition to religious liberty exemptions for abortion is also consistent with the Biden-Harris administration’s policies over the last four years.

The Biden-Harris Department of Health and Human Services promulgated a rule in 2022 that sought to force all hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to provide abortions if it constituted a “stabilizing treatment” under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This rule was blocked by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the administration’s appeal.

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “direct abortion is never permissible.” 

Grazie Pozo Christie, a senior fellow at The Catholic Association, said in a statement that Harris “should clarify, and quickly, whether given the chance she would force Americans who object on religious or conscience grounds to participate in abortion.”

“Sadly, it would not be the first time Harris has used her political power to trample the rights of religious Americans,” Christie said.

Harris has committed to enshrining a legal right to abortion into federal law at least until the point of viability by codifying the abortion standards set in the now-defunct Roe v. Wade ruling. During her candidacy for president, she has also refused to disavow late-term abortion, which is legal in several states.