The Democratic Party appears to be rapidly coalescing around Kamala Harris to be the party’s presidential candidate in the wake of President Joe Biden pulling out of the race. That means we are all going to be hearing a lot, lot more about abortion, known in Democrat parlance as “reproductive freedom” and of which Harris is held up as being a “champion” defender. <br><br>Earlier this year, Harris embarked in her official capacity as US vice president on a nationwide so-called "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour to highlight the impact on abortion access due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and, in the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/19/vice-president-kamala-harris-launches-reproductive-freedoms-tour/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">words of the White House</mark></a>, "to fight back against extremist attacks" (you couldn't make this sort of stuff up; and to think that this is the country that produced Abe Lincoln).
During the "tour", Harris became <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/kamala-harris-visit-to-abortion-clinic-marks-distressing-first-for-a-us-vice-president/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">the first US vice president to visit an abortion clinic</mark></a>, which she appeared to do with much gusto; an attitude around this particular topic that will be a constant on the campaign trail up to November's election if Harris secures her party's nomination as its presidential candidate.
“Kamala Harris’ campaign by the way is going to be abortion, abortion, abortion," Freddy Grey, deputy editor of the <em>Spectator</em>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/biden-backs-out-can-anything-stop-kamala-harris/id1157627091?i=1000662990065"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">says</mark></a> in the magazine’s recent <em>Americano</em> podcast about the consequences of Biden's withdrawal from the race. <br><br>"She’s going to talk about very little else and [about] the kind of threat that the Republican Party and a second Trump term poses to what they call 'women’s reproductive rights'."
While there is still nearly a month to go until the Democratic National Convention convenes in Chicago during the latter half of August to formally nominate the Democrats' candidate to take on the Republican Party’s candidate, Donald Trump, since Biden stepped down the well-oiled Democrat machinery as well as much of the mainstream media have resolutely swung behind Harris.
Already, many of those who had previously been tipped as potential presidential contenders for the Democrats, were Biden to step aside, have now endorsed Harris, such as Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Gretchen Witmer, governor of Michigan.
In her endorsement message on social media platform <em>X</em>, Witmer praised Harris for being a “champion for reproductive freedom”.
The overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 was seen as a great victory for the pro-life movement in the US, and was largely made possible by President Donald Trump's appointment of three conservative Justices (all with Catholic backgrounds).<br><br>But as the <em>Catholic Herald</em> previously discussed in its article "<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/will-the-abortion-issue-decide-us-election/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Could the abortion issue decide US election?</mark></a>", there was an immediate backlash at the ballot box against the Court’s decision during the mid-term elections that same year.
Every president in recent memory – bar George W Bush after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 – has been roundly defeated at their first mid-term elections. The same was expected in Biden’s first significant electoral test in 2022, when it was widely predicted that Democrats would be swept away by a mighty Republican wave.
But pro-choice supporters urged others to register their anger at the polls and it seemed to work: instead of a shellacking for Biden, he did far better than expected. On top of that, ten states – some of them Republican bastions like Alaska, Arizona, Kansas and Montana – voted to pass laws guaranteeing that abortions would remain legal within their borders.
The Democrats took note and haven’t looked back. When Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign video, sure enough, the voiceover waxed lyrical about protecting reproductive freedom for women as the cheery images of white picket fences and Old Glory flying from people’s houses rolled on by. <br><br>That mantra is only going to step up a gear with Harris.
At her first campaign rally on 23 July in Milwuake, <em>Reuters</em> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/takeaways-harris-brings-new-energy-doubles-down-abortion-rights-2024-07-23/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> that “Harris got the biggest reaction from the crowd with remarks about abortion and women's rights, an early indication of how important it will be to her campaign and the election overall.”
Harris told the crowd: "We will stop Donald Trump's extreme abortion ban because we trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and not have the government tell them what to do."
Amid roars from the adulating crowd she added: "When Congress passes the law to restore reproductive freedoms as President of the United States, I will sign it."
As I wrote previously about the <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-muddled-end-to-joe-bidens-campaign-highlights-problems-plaguing-us-politics/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">muddled end to Biden's election campaign being indicitive of so much that is wrong with US politics today</mark></a>, the disappointment, if not disgust, that many US Catholics have felt at the way Biden and his administration have governed could pale in comparison to a President Harris, given she has shown herself to be even more rabidly progressive in her outlook on issues such as abortion. <br><br>Grey notes, however, that up to now Harris has been a “bit of a mystery – or an empty vessel, depending on how you want to look at it”, when it comes to where she actually resides on the political spectrum, adding that in ideological terms she “has kind of pivoted a little bit whichever way the wind blows”.<br><br>Abortion remains hugely divisive and polarising in the US, and there is undoubtedly an overwhelmingly strong wind blowing on the Democrat side in favour of buttressing abortion and liberalising it further.
Which is why Harris is not going to prove a "bit of a mystery" when it comes to "reproductive freedom" and "women’s reproductive rights". <br><br>What will be more interesting is what Trump's newly nominated running mate, JD Vance, makes of it, and how he responds.
Vance, a Catholic convert, has <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/what-are-we-to-make-of-jd-vance-including-his-turn-to-catholicism/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">shown himself to be a serious thinker</mark></a> and that he "recognises the humanity of the foetus and also the difficult situation of many of those who seek abortion", alongside a "recognition of abortion as a moral evil".
A discussion between Vance and Harris on the topic would be an informative display for US voters and for the rest of us watching from the sidelines in anticipation of what direction American society and US Catholicism is going to go after the election.
It matters for all. When America sneezes, the rest of us still catch a cold. That hasn't changed yet, as recent events, trends and shifts in the fabrics of our societies have made abundantly clear.
<em>Photo: US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the White House, Washington, DC, USA. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.)</em>
