In an interview Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, dismissed the idea of religious exemptions for abortion.
Hallie Jackson, senior Washington correspondent for NBC News, asked Harris what kind of concessions she would be willing to make with a hypothetical Republican-majority Congress in order to pass legislation protecting abortion if she wins the Nov. 5 election.
“What concessions would be on the table? Religious exemptions, for example, is that something that you would consider?” Jackson asked.
“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 replied.
Harris’ campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment clarifying her position on religious exemptions.
Religious Exemptions
Federal law provides, and has provided, multiple religious-freedom protections for doctors, nurses, hospitals, and taxpayers who object to being forced to participate in an abortion. The Biden-Harris administration has vocally opposed the Hyde Amendment, the nearly half-century-old legislation that would protect taxpayers from footing the bill for procedures that kill the unborn, but the administration has acknowledged that federal law protects other exemptions.
During Supreme Court oral arguments in March, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether it is true that “under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion.” Prelogar confirmed that “federal conscience protections provide broad coverage” on that issue.
Prelogar cited the Church Amendments, named for then-Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, which Congress passed and the president signed into law in the 1970s. These amendments prevent the government from forcing health care institutions that receive federal assistance to make their facilities available for abortion or sterilization. They also prevent entities receiving federal funds from discriminating against health care providers who refuse to perform abortions or sterilizations.
Similarly, the 1996 Coats-Snowe Amendment prohibits the federal government and any state or local government receiving federal funds from discriminating against any health care entity on the basis that the entity refuses to perform abortions or to undergo training in performance of abortions. The amendment takes its name from its Senate co-sponsors, then-Sens. Dan Coats, R-Ind., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
The Weldon Amendment, originally passed as part of a bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services for 2005, stipulates that no HHS appropriations may fund any federal agency or program that discriminates against health care providers that refuse to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. It takes its name from then-Rep. David Weldon, R-Fla.
The Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from footing the bill for abortion, remains in effect, since Congress included it in 2022 funding legislation. Even if the Hyde Amendment fails, federal law will still provide various religious exemptions that protect Americans who believe abortion constitutes the killing of an unborn human being.
Under current law, hospitals can refuse to perform abortions, refuse to let others perform abortions using their facilities, and refuse to train health care professionals to perform abortions. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals can refuse to perform abortions, assist in performing abortions, and undergo training for abortions. Pharmacists can refuse to dispense abortion-inducing drugs, and employers can decline to cover abortion-inducing drugs for employees.
One out of five hospital beds in the U.S. sits in a religious-based hospital, and Catholic hospitals make up three-quarters of those religious hospitals, according to a University of California at San Francisco study.
What Is Harris’ Position?
The Harris campaign did not respond to questions about whether the vice president opposes these religious exemptions. While she did not explicitly call for the repeal of the Church Amendments, the Coats-Snowe Amendment, or the Weldon Amendment, her flat rejection of even the idea of offering religious exemptions as a potential compromise on the issue suggests a firm opposition to any religious exemptions.
Furthermore, Harris’ framing—“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body”—suggests she would remove any exemptions from a law to codify abortion protections.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment about what punishment Harris considers appropriate for anyone who declines to participate in abortion, should the religious exemptions be struck down.
This issue may carry salience for Catholics and many evangelical Christians, whose faith condemns abortion as a form of murder. Biden, when he served in the U.S. Senate, firmly supported the Hyde Amendment as part of his stance that he was “personally opposed” to the practice, while he would allow it legally. He abandoned the Hyde Amendment while campaigning for the presidency in 2020.
The Biden administration has sought to roll back religious exemptions. Would a Harris administration do the same?
