The Rev. Franklin Graham said California Sen. Kamala Harris’s vocal support of Planned Parenthood and abortion rights should disqualify presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden from consideration among Christian voters.
“This should be a great concern to all Christians,” Graham said on Wednesday. “As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am pro-life [and] believe every life is precious to God.”
A link to a Breitbart News article in which leaders of the anti-abortion movement warned that Biden and Harris make up “the most pro-abortion presidential ticket in history” accompanied Graham’s tweet.
“Like Joe Biden himself, Kamala Harris favors radical abortion policies including late-term abortion paid for by taxpayers, as well as forcing Catholic religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide abortion drugs in their healthcare plans,” said Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, in a statement. “In November 2018, Harris ruthlessly criticized Brian Buescher, a Catholic federal district court nominee from Nebraska, about his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. It is clear that a Biden-Harris ticket threatens the values Catholics in this country hold most dear.”
As she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, Harris suggested that local and state governments with restrictive abortion laws should be required to seek federal approval before changing laws relative to women’s reproductive health.
“When we look at a law like what’s happening in Alabama and they’re saying they’re going to sentence a doctor to 99 years, as a prosecutor, let me tell you, I got a real problem with that,” Harris said during a cable news town hall in May 2019. “We cannot tolerate a perspective that is about going backward and not understanding women have agency, women have value, women have authority to make decisions about their own lives and their own bodies.”
Planned Parenthood congratulated Harris in a statement this week after Biden announced her as his running mate.
“Throughout her career, she has been a steadfast champion for reproductive rights and health care. With this selection, Joe Biden has made it clear that he is deeply committed to not only protecting reproductive rights but also advancing and expanding them,” the organization said. “There is no doubt that Kamala will electrify the ticket and play a vital role in defeating Donald Trump.”
President Trump pledged support for the anti-abortion movement during his first term in office. This year, he became the first sitting president to speak at the national March for Life in Washington, D.C.
“Together, we are the voice for the voiceless,” Trump said at the rally. “When it comes to abortion, Democrats is a — and you know this, you’ve seen what’s happened — Democrats have embraced the most radical and extreme positions taken and seen in this country for years, and decades — and you can even say for centuries.”
Biden has promised to make access to reproductive healthcare for women a priority of his platform if elected president but took flak from Democratic primary challengers, including Harris, over his support for the Hyde Amendment.
“Only since you’ve been running for president this time [have you] said that you in some way would take that back or you didn’t agree with that decision you made over many, many years, and this directly impacted so many women in our country,” Harris pressed the former vice president during a Democratic debate in Detroit late last year.
Biden responded, “The senator knows that’s not my position. Everybody on this stage [that] has been in the Congress, in the Senate or House, has voted on the Hyde Amendment.”
Trump has zeroed in on Biden’s Catholic faith in recent weeks, painting him as a hypocrite and notwithstanding of Christian values.
“He’s following the radical Left agenda: take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God,” Trump said of Biden last week. “He’s against God. He’s against guns.”
The president has taken criticism of his own from faith leaders during his first term in office. Earlier this summer, the Trump administration cleared a group of protesters gathered outside a church that had been vandalized across the street from the White House so the president could walk there while holding a bible.
“He didn’t come to church to pray. He didn’t come to church to offer condolences to those who are grieving,” said Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. “He didn’t come to commit to healing our nation — all the things that we would expect and long for from the highest leader in the land.”
