Vice President Kamala Harris sparked criticism from Christians and pro-lifers this week when she compared the views of pro-lifers with those of pre-Civil War slave owners.
Harris, in addressing the NAACP national convention in Atlantic City, N.J., said the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobb decision “took away a constitutional right … from the people of America, from the women of America.” She then pivoted to slavery.
“We know, NAACP, that our country has a history of claiming ownership over human bodies,” she said. “And today, extremists, so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors and punishing women for making healthcare decisions for themselves – personal decisions that it is her right to make in consultation with her doctor, her pastor, her priest, her rabbi, her loved ones, not her government telling her what to do.”
NOW - Kamala Harris links the U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion to American slavery.pic.twitter.com/Kjt3ywVyAh
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 18, 2022
America, she said, “must also take steps to protect … the freedom for a woman to make decisions about her own body.”
Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, criticized the comments.
“The point that the vice president is obviously missing is that, in her pro-abortion worldview, human bodies continue to be treated as worthless and disposable,” Leatherwood told Baptist Press. “She is just failing to recognize the obvious: Those preborn lives deserve the freedom to live and should be protected by our laws, not extinguished by them.
“These comments are further evidence that, while the Dobbs decision represents an unqualified victory for the pro-life movement, it also means our work continues through principled advocacy to leaders, life-saving efforts in the legislative arena and earnest appeals to the conscience of every American,” Leatherwood added. “Central to all of this will be our pastors, whose proclamations about the truth of God’s Word that each and every life is precious will be as important as ever.”
Related:
Kamala Harris: Supporting Abortion ‘Does not Require Anyone to Abandon their Faith’
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Mason Trinca/Stringer
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
