(LifeSiteNews) –– Vice President and presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris is picking up President Joe Biden’s longstanding pledge to sign a law creating a nationwide right to abortion-on-demand if she gets a chance, bringing her own history of pro-abortion radicalism back to the forefront.
Live Action reports that, while speaking to campaign staffers Monday, the newly-minted Democrat standard-bearer touted their “fight for reproductive freedom, knowing if [former President and Republican nominee Donald] Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every state. But we will not let that happen.”
“It is this team here that is going to help this November to elect a majority of members of U.S. Congress who agree that the government should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris continued. “And when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the U.S., I will sign it into law.”
Harris’s remarks continue the Democrat strategy of insisting Trump would pursue an aggressive pro-life agenda if elected, despite Trump and his allies spending much of the past two years, culminating in a dramatically watered-down Republican Party platform, opposing not only a federal abortion ban but any further pro-life action at the federal level, to the anguish of many pro-lifers.
At the same time, the pledge is consistent with the Biden-Harris administration’s record on the issue during its tenure, reflects Democrats’ belief that stoking pro-abortion fear will drive enough favorable turnout for them to win, and highlights the differences that remain between the Democrat ticket and Trump’s current abortion position.
Throughout his presidency, Biden demanded Congress pass legislation to codify a “right” to abortion in federal law, specifically endorsing (along with nearly every Democrat in Congress) the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would forbid states from passing any law that not only prohibits abortion but would be “reasonably likely to delay or deter” or “indirectly” raise the cost of abortions. While the bill would ostensibly let abortion be restricted after fetal viability, in practice it gives abortionists discretion to decide if a post-viability abortion is “necessary” for a mother’s “health.”
Harris herself has consistently refused in interviews to name any point at which she would no longer support legal abortion, maintained 100 percent pro-abortion voting records during her time in the U.S. Senate, and back when she was Attorney General of California prosecuted pro-life journalist David Daleiden for exposing Planned Parenthood’s violation of laws pertaining to harvesting aborted baby parts rather than the abortion industry lawbreakers themselves. In March, she became the first vice president to personally tour an abortion facility, a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Biden announced Sunday he was dropping out of the 2024 race and endorsing his vice president to take over as Democrat presidential nominee, following weeks of public and private calls to step aside ever since a disastrous televised debate magnified longstanding concerns about the 81-year-old president’s mental infirmity, and convinced many the problem could not be obscured well enough to keep him politically viable. Harris has reportedly obtained enough delegate pledges to secure the nomination, though she too has faced discontent with her own job performance and doubts about her own odds of victory.
So far, RealClearPolitics and RaceToTheWH indicate that the change in Democrat nominee has not changed the trajectory of the race; Trump maintains his lead both in aggregations of the national popular vote and in the Electoral College.
The Democratic National Convention, where the party’s choice for president is supposed to be formally nominated, begins August 19 in Chicago, Illinois.