Washington: American Vice President Kamala Harris is facing criticism for her pro-abortion views claiming that Americans of any religion can support abortion in accordance with their faith. The Vice President’s tweet on abortion rights has invited heavy flak from pro-life groups and liberals.
“It’s important to note that to support a woman’s ability — not her government, but her — to make that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs,” Harris said Monday at the NAACP National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
Harris, a Baptist, has made this assertion about abortion before.
“For those of us of faith, I think that we agree, many of us, that there’s nothing about this issue that will require anyone to abandon their faith or change their faith,” she said on June 17, at Dulles International Airport.
Earlier that same month, Harris met with several faith leaders — none of whom were Catholic — to discuss “reproductive rights.” She repeated a similar claim, saying that religious Americans could support Roe vs Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, in line with their faith.
“To support Roe vs Wade and all it stands for, does not mean giving up your beliefs,” she said on June 6. “It is simply about agreeing that a woman should be able to make that decision with her faith leader, with her family, with her physician. And that the government should not be making that decision for her.”
Catholic and political experts have challenged Harris' remarks.
Ed Whelan, a distinguished senior fellow and the Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., called the vice president’s stance “outrageous” in a tweet.
“Kamala Harris has no business using her government position to tell Americans how their faith should inform their views on legal protections for the unborn,” he told CNA.
Father Matthew Schneider, a Catholic priest and author of the book "God Loves The Autistic Mind," called Harris’ assertion “false.”
“Supporting the legal killing of innocent humans due to their circumstances, development, or size is an affront to any serious religious ethic,” he tweeted.
He pointed to Catholic Church teaching.
“The Church clearly teaches that the government has the role of defending human life,” he told CNA. “That includes life from conception. John Paul II clearly defined this in Evangelium Vitae with regard to abortion. If one denies that, they go against Catholic teaching.”