By Tyler Arnold
With President Joe Bidenbowing outof the 2024 presidential race following intense pressure from within hisownparty, Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic nominee to face former president Donald Trump in November’s general election.
Harris was raised by a Christian father and a Hindu mother and attended both Hindu and Christian services as a child. As an adult, Harris was a member of a Black Baptist church. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, is Jewish and attended a Reform Synagogue growing up.
Throughout her career — as vice president, senator, and attorney general of California — Harris has taken a variety of stances that could pose problems for Catholic voters, a key voting bloc.
Harris has consistently promoted abortion, scrutinized Catholic judicial nominees, and opposed pro-life pregnancy centers and activists. She has also embraced gender ideology as well as transgender and contraception mandates that have, at times, jeopardized religious freedom.
As vice president, Harris has taken the lead on many of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to promote abortion, including theeffortto codify Roe v. Wade’s abortion standards into federal law.
In September of last year, the vice president embarked on a tour stopping at various college campuses called the“Fight for Our Freedoms College Tour”to promote abortion and other aspects of the administration’s agenda.
At the beginning of 2024, she launchedanother speaking tourto promote abortion called “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms.” During this tour, Harris became the first sitting vice presidentto visit an abortion clinicin March when she toured a Planned Parenthood facility in Minneapolis. At the event, she praised abortionists and chastised pro-life lawmakers who voted to put limits on abortion.
Inan interview with ABCin 2023, Harris criticized states that adopted pro-life laws and urged Congress to pass legislation that would establish federal abortion standards that prevent states from enforcing pro-life laws. In 2022,the vice president claimedthat religious Americans can support abortion without abandoning their faith.
As a senator, Harrisco-sponsored legislationthat would have prevented states from passing abortion restrictions, and shevoted against a billthat would have required doctors to provide medical care to a child who is born after a failed abortion attempt.
As a senator, Harris pressed three judicial nominees about their affiliations with the Knights of Columbus: Brian Buescher, Paul Matey, and Peter Phipps. Her questions suggested that the nominees’ ties to the Catholic fraternal organization could make them biased because the group adheres to Church teachings about life and marriage.
Inwritten questionsto Buescher, for example, Harris asked the nominee whether he knew “that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when [he] joined the organization.” She questioned whether he agreed with then-Supreme Knight Carl Anderson that abortion is “the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.” She asked him whether he knew “that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when [he] joined the organization.”
Buescher, responding to Harris, informed her that “the Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic service organization with approximately 2 million members worldwide.”
“The organization has a religious and charitable purpose,” he continued. “I joined the Knights of Columbus when I was 18 years old and have been a member ever since. My membership has involved participation in charitable and community events in local Catholic parishes.”
In 2016, as California attorney general, Harris’ officelaunched a raidon the pro-life activist David Daleiden’s home.
The raid was in response to Daleiden’s undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood, which showed organization officialsdiscussing costsfor fetal tissue and body parts. It is illegal to sell fetal tissue and body parts.
Harris claimed that Daleiden broke several laws when obtaining videos of Planned Parenthood officials. He was charged with 15 felonies related to allegations of falsification of identity and invasion of privacy. He pleaded guilty, but the case is still ongoing.
As attorney general, she never launched an investigation into the allegations against Planned Parenthood. She received thousands of dollars in campaign funds from Planned Parenthood.
As California’s attorney general, Harrisco-sponsoredand promotedthe Reproductive FACT Act, which required pro-life pregnancy centers to post notices that provided information on where to obtain abortions.
Pro-life pregnancy centers sued the attorney general’s office, arguing that the law violated their First Amendment rights. In 2018, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the lawviolated the right to free speechbecause it compelled speech.
The legislation served as a model for lawmakers in other states, such asVermontandIllinois, who tried to regulate the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers.
Throughout her career, Harris has been against strong protections for religious freedom and has supported gender ideology.
In 2014, Harris wasone of 14 state attorneys generalto file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court that asked the court to force Hobby Lobby to cover contraception — which included potentially abortifacient drugs — in its health insurance policies despite the ownership’s religious opposition.
As a senator, Harris went further, co-sponsoring theDo No Harm Actand theEquality Act. The former would have ended religious exemptions for certain government mandates, such as laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and rules that force insurance coverage of abortion and sex change surgeries. The latter would haveprohibiteddiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
As vice president, Harris has further promoted gender ideology. She has criticized Republican states for prohibiting doctors from performing sex-change surgeries on minors, restricting female sports to only biological women and girls, and preventing teachers from pushing gender ideology onto students.
