Kamala Harris vs. Motherhood

By: Paul Kengor, originally published November 5, 2024, Crisis Magazine

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris made clear that nothing impassions her like abortion. Abortion, abortion, abortion.

What explains Kamala Harris’ fanaticism on abortion? 

The strident militancy of Kamala Harris on the abortion issue really is quite striking, shocking, and extraordinary. Her 2024 campaign further underscored what we already knew about her based on her actions in California and then in Washington as the state’s junior senator in the U.S. Senate.

On the Senate Judiciary Committee, a hostile Harris badgered Catholic judicial nominees such as Judge Brian Buescher for having the audacity to be a member of the Knights of Columbus, a group guilty of the cardinal sin of being “anti-choice.” Senator Harris pondered whether Buescher was fit to serve on the U.S. District Court in Nebraska because he belonged to an organization that she disparagingly described as “an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men.”

At the California attorney general’s office, Harris hounded David Daleiden for daring to expose the abortion industry’s insidious “fetal parts” business. Her target was not the parts peddlers but the man who exposed them. She also prosecuted crisis pregnancy centers while being a stalwart for Planned Parenthood, a group close to her heart. The lady loathes pro-lifers.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris made clear that nothing impassions her like abortion. Abortion, abortion, abortion. She shoves it down our throats at every turn and with every audience. I sit with my sons and buddies watching a Pittsburgh Steelers game only to be interrupted by obnoxious commercials from Harris and Democrats featuring a female abortion doctor fuming about why Republican candidate X, Y, or Z—whether Donald Trump or (in my neck of the woods in western Pennsylvania) senate candidates David McCormick or Bernie Moreno—is “anti-choice” and “against women.” That’s not the kind of ad you target at guys eating Primanti Bros.’ sandwiches and drinking Iron City beer. Unless you’re utterly obsessed with abortion.

Abortion, abortion, abortion. Why is this woman so hell-bent on this one issue?

Candidly, we sort of saw this before with another Democrat presidential nominee. Recall that in 2016, of course, the Democratic nominee was Hillary Clinton. She, too, was singularly focused on abortion. I knew this well. I wrote a spiritual biography of Hillary Clinton, in which I dealt with her abortion radicalism. For that book, I interviewed the infamous William F. Harrison, who was Hillary Clinton’s personal friend, OB-GYN, and, quite chillingly, the most prolific self-described “abortionist” in the history of Arkansas. At the time, a detailed Los Angeles Times profile of Harrison reported that he had conducted over 20,000 abortions. He candidly conceded, “I am destroying life,” and described his patients as liberated, as “born again.” 

At one point in our interview, Harrison surprised me by stating, “You would probably like to know if Hillary came to me for an abortion.” I told him that I hadn’t planned to ask him that. Nonetheless, he didn’t hesitate to offer the information. “Hillary never saw me for an abortion,” Harrison told me. “I don’t know of any abortion that Hillary ever had.”

I’ve thought about the Harrison-Hillary exchange many times during Kamala’s 2024 campaign. I first thought of it when a friend asked me, “I wonder if Kamala Harris has had an abortion, or maybe several?”

I certainly don’t know the answer to that question. It’s none of my business. That’s something private to Harris, her doctors, and God. But I do know this, and I think it’s the more relevant point, and my focus here: Kamala Harris has never given birth. She has never been a biological mother. Hillary Clinton has given the gift of life to a child, but Kamala Harris has not. Yes, Kamala has two kids, but they are stepchildren, the children of her husband Doug Emhoff, who was previously married.

For the record, in no way do I state this as a criticism or judgment of Kamala Harris (or any woman who has never given birth). I note it because I think it might well give some insight into my opening question in this article, namely: What explains Kamala Harris’ fanaticism on abortion?

As most people in the pro-life movement know, as do many political pollsters, young unmarried women more often identify as “pro-choice” and vote Democrat. They’re gaga for Kamala in 2024. Conversely, married women with children tend to identify as pro-life and vote Republican. They will offset some of the young “pro-choice” vote for Harris, though not enough to tip the women’s vote even close to Donald Trump.

More to the point, American women tend to become more pro-life once they get married, give birth, and have kids. That’s the general course of things, though it has not been the course for Kamala Harris. The 60-year-old is more like a 20-year-old college girl who wants abortion as an unrestricted option in order to “terminate” an unwanted pregnancy.

To be sure, there are obviously many women in middle age, or the same age as Kamala, who are biologically childless but pro-life. I’m very close to several, both friends and family. But in the case of Kamala Harris, I think it’s probably revealing that this militantly “pro-choice” 60-year-old has never experienced the inexpressible joy of carrying an unborn child in her womb for 40 weeks, giving birth to the helpless infant, cradling that child in her arms, feeding him from her breasts, burping him, changing diapers, swaddling him, staring lovingly into his eyes every hour of the day, rocking him to sleep, raising him, and doing all the beautifully intimate things that make staunchly “pro-choice” women change their minds on abortion. Millions of women will tell you, with tears in their eyes, that having children completely converted them to the pro-life cause. 

Kamala Harris, however, is a woman who has never had those experiences of biological motherhood. That life-changing absence probably helps to explain her abortion fanaticism. It’s actually very sad. And what’s especially sad is that such a woman might become the first female president of the United States.

Paul Kengor is Professor of Political Science at Grove City College, executive director of the Center for Vision and Values, an author, and the editor of The American Spectator.