Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday night she would reject religious exemptions for abortion as president, effectively forcing health-care providers to perform the medical procedure in violation of their moral conscience.
The Democratic presidential nominee has been adamant about passing a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade into law, despite the Supreme Court overturning that decision in 2022. In an interview with NBC News anchor Hallie Jackson, Harris indicated she would refuse to compromise with Republican lawmakers on the abortion legislation.
“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said when asked if she would consider religious exemptions for abortion in the likelihood of a divided government.
Jackson, citing Senators Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) as Republicans who would join Democrats in backing the abortion bill, questioned the vice president on whether she would extend an “olive branch” to Republicans on the issue in the event they control Congress.
“I’m not gonna engage in hypotheticals because we could go on a variety of scenarios,” Harris replied. “Let’s just start with a fundamental fact, a basic freedom has been taken from the women of America: the freedom to make decisions about their own body. And that cannot be negotiable, which is that we need to put back in the protections of Roe v. Wade. And that is it.”
The news anchor then pushed Harris on the possibility of Congress failing to pass the legislation, to which the latter answered that she is “doing everything I can to make sure” Democrats win control of both legislative chambers next month.