NASHVILLE (BP) — Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris told an interviewer Tuesday (Sept. 24) that she would be in favor of eliminating the filibuster for votes on abortion-related legislation in the Senate.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris said in the interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, “and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
Harris has made abortion a centerpiece of her campaign, pledging to sign any bill that “restore[s] reproductive freedom nationwide,” according to her website.
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) President Brent Leatherwood said it appears such abortion extremism is a hard sell for many Americans.
“I’ve often found that calls to end the filibuster are the result of an inability to win consensus on an issue. It means you are losing,” Leatherwood told Baptist Press in written comments. “That’s what is playing out here as well. Vice President Harris is essentially admitting defeat for her campaign to advance a pro-abortion agenda. Since she can’t convince enough Americans that the ability to destroy a preborn child should be protected by law, she now wants to jettison a rule that protects the ability of senators to speak up for those precious lives. In this, she is forecasting that she is willing to completely upend the Senate to get her way. That’s not leadership — it’s preposterous.”
Ultimately, Harris would like to see the abortion protections afforded by Roe v. Wade — that is, expansive abortion rights at virtually any stage of pregnancy — ensconced in federal law. Such a law would usurp the abortion restrictions many states have established since Roe was overturned.
As long as the Senate has at least 41 pro-life members, those members could maintain a filibuster to keep any federal pro-abortion legislation from coming forward for a vote. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster.
Currently, the Senate has 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats and four Independents. At least two Republicans are known for voting with Democrats on the issue of abortion, though it’s unlikely any Republicans would be willing to eliminate the filibuster for any reason.
It’s impossible to say what the makeup of the Senate will become in January, though it looks likely that Republicans will have a small majority.
“The filibuster is a mechanism that maintains the Senate’s status as a thoughtful and deliberative body,” Leatherwood said. “It ensures minority parties can’t be steamrolled. Admittedly, it can frustrate the will of the majority, however slim. Well, when it comes to protecting preborn lives, I can think of no better reason to make sure the filibuster is maintained.”
This is not the first time Harris has supported eliminating the filibuster for certain issues. In remarks at the Democratic National Committee Summer Meeting in 2022, Harris said she looked forward, in her role as vice president and thus Senate tie-breaker, to casting the deciding vote to “break the filibuster on voting rights and reproductive rights — I cannot wait,” she said.
As a senator and presidential candidate in 2019, Harris said she would be in favor of abolishing the filibuster in order to pass the Green New Deal.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Laura Erlanson is managing editor of Baptist Press.)
