Do Christians have a moral obligation to vote for Kamala Harris? Last session, we talked about how it’s not probable that a Christian worldview aligns in any meaningful sense with voting for her, But despite that, there are Christians saying now that you, as a pro-life evangelical have a moral obligation to support Kamala Harris. What on earth are they thinking? I’ll tell you in this episode of the Case for Life podcast. Welcome, friends. Good to have you with us today. Want to remind you of a couple of things. Number one, remember our prime sponsor, Life Training Institute. Be sure to visit our website at prolifetraining.com. to get information on speakers and training sessions we offer, especially during these heady political times. You want to be equipped to make the best case you can, and LTI can help you do that. We’d love to help you that way. Secondly, if you have not already picked up a copy of the second edition of The Case for Life, can I encourage you to do so? by going to scottklusendorf.com and picking up and purchasing a copy there. This book will further equip you in the turbulent times that we live in. Now, what has happened that would raise the title that I just tossed out to you a few minutes ago is this. Like last election cycle, we now have a new group out called Pro-life evangelicals for Harris. Last time it was pro-life evangelicals for Biden. And the premise of these groups is always the same. If you’re really a Christian, so their argument goes, you should take a long view, Don’t vote for a guy like Donald Trump. Don’t vote for conservatives. vote for leftist liberals in hopes that in the long run, you will actually do more to reduce abortion and help the pro-life cause ultimately succeed. That’s the argument they put out there. These groups are all funded by very leftist organizations, George Soros-type money. In fact, there’s a new book out that documents this quite well. I don’t know how many of you have seen this but Megan Basham’s book Shepherds for Sale does a great job documenting how leftists have infiltrated evangelical circles and convinced a lot of people that the best way to promote a Christian worldview is to vote for people diametrically opposed to that Christian worldview. It’s gaslighting on an epic level, but yet it’s being done and we see it happening here. So the latest example comes from a journalist named David French, who many of you are aware of, who has written a piece in the New York Times about why he not only is not going to vote for Trump, but rather he’s going to cast a vote for Harris in the name of being pro-life and in the name of purifying the Republican Party. Now, folks, this is just nuts. This is crazy. It’s counterintuitive on the face of it. And you would be within your right mind to say, I don’t even need to hear any more. How is it possible that you could cast an effective pro-life vote for a candidate in a party that promotes abortion wholesale, not only here in the U.S., but funds it overseas. and to the tune of millions of deaths a year of unborn humans, you’d be within your rights to say that’s just stupid on the face of it, I don’t even need to think about this anymore. And I could excuse you doing that, but I’d rather go a little deeper here. first of all, let me say a few words about David French. He is not a guy who is liked by conservative Christians, and I understand why. But let’s also remember, this is a guy who very effectively help Mike S. Adams, who was a conservative columnist who was trying to get conservative classes taught at public universities. And he had been dismissed from his position. He was being He wasn’t being paid for the work he was doing. He was being denied tenure based on content discrimination. And David French was one of the attorneys who argued his case successfully and helped Mike win. So I don’t want to just demonize someone. without also pointing out the bright side of what they do. But as we say here, good deeds don’t always atone for bad ones. And this is a case where David French’s worldview is indeed very mixed up. Now, in this New York Times piece, he writes that he’s going to vote for Harris for a couple of reasons. Number one, he thinks that if we can clear the Republican Party and cleanse it of any Trump influence, we’ll be better off in the long term. And the pro-life movement, secondly, will be better off in the long term if we get the movement back to Reagan-esque politics and away from what he would call Trumpism. Okay, here’s the problem with that argument. There’s a lot of them. Let me give you the big one, then I’m just going to walk you through what Kamala Harris actually stands for when it comes to abortion. We’re going to look beyond what she said. We all know she said abortion is the centerpiece of her campaign, as it was for Biden. But I want to actually look at her record and give a concrete example of why voting for her cannot in any possible world represent a pro-life vote. But backing up for a moment, It is true that there are plenty of people out there who say, look, I just can’t stand Donald Trump. I’m pro-life. I’m not going to vote for him. Okay, I disagree with that view. I think we have an obligation as Christians to cast an effective vote to limit evil insofar as possible, given what’s in front of us. But in this particular case, what’s being done is not someone saying, look, I just can’t vote for Donald Trump. It’s somebody saying, I’m going to go the step further and actually vote for the Democrat whose pro-abortion on record is being pro-abortion and has pledged to promote it wholesale. So that’s what we’re dealing with right now with David French. This is the article he’s written in the New York Times. And so what I want to do is just take a few steps to look at what Kamala Harris stands for And then let’s ask the question. I’d like to ask 2 questions. Number one, how easy is it going to be to just undo all this? French wants us to believe, look, in 4 years we can reset the table. We’ll do a system reset right now by voting against Donald Trump and voting for Kamala Harris. That’ll cleanse our ranks of all these evil Trumpsters and will allow us to reset the table so that we can have a pure and undefiled pro-life movement moving forward, one that aligns with a Christian worldview as he sees it. and one where all the radical Trumpsters are out of the party and we’re back to being the party he envisions us being. So that’s the question. How easy will it be to reset the table if we even follow what David French is saying. And I’m going to argue it won’t be easy at all. But then secondly, I want to ask this question. Is it morally permissible to treat babies’ lives as poker chips? Because that’s basically what is being done here by David French. He’s basically saying, look, I’m willing to sacrifice children’s lives today in hopes of achieving an idealized political future down the road where everything will be perfect, no more Trump voters, No more witness harm to our walk as Christians. We’ll have a cleansed GOP party. and we’ll have a cleansed pro-life movement that will be more effective and a better witness. And I’m willing, says French, to sacrifice children’s lives that could be saved today if we’re able to limit evil in this next election cycle. He says, I’m willing to sacrifice those children for the sake of an idealized future which I want to respond by saying, how do you even know when that will happen and if it will happen? And my argument will be it’s not going to be easy to just undo everything that 4 years of Kamala Harris will give us. at the federal level. It’s not going to be an easy turnaround. So I think there’s a real moral lack in his way of approaching this issue. So let’s set all that aside for the moment. and just look at what we know of Kamala Harris on abortion. And then we can ask the question, in what possible world does she represent even a long-term pro-life vote? Okay, so if we look at Harris, Just historically, we’ll see 3 things. Number one, she is symbolically, unapologetically pro-abortion. She is politically unapologetically pro-abortion and she will be structurally pro-abortion. I’ll unpack what each of those means. Symbolically, here’s what I mean. She has gone out of her way to make it very clear that abortion is a centerpiece of who she is, not only as a presidential candidate, but as a person. You may remember a few months ago she went to a a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, arguably the most pro-abortion state we have. This is a state that shortly after the Dobbs decision repealed what little pro-life legislation was still on the books. It took away 24 hour waiting periods. It also removed protections from unborn children who survive abortion procedures. So a child is born alive, What Minnesota did is strip those children of being provided medical care. They’re allowed to die on the table. And this is something Minnesota did. Kamala Harris goes to the most pro-abortion state in the union. visits a killing center there and walks through it like this is just a great thing. There has never been a vice president or president who’s ever done that, but she did it, and I think it’s more than just a photo op. She is sending a very clear message about who she is and what she wants people to understand about her. symbolically. Look also at her choice for vice president. Who was governor when Minnesota repealed all these pro-life bills and established in its state a so-called constitutional right to an abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy and one that stripped babies who survive of any protection. Well, that’s her VP choice, Waltz, okay? So she’d made that choice, and I think there’s symbolism in that. She also did this within the context of a campaign that was going on at the time called the fight for reproductive rights. Freedom. This was a nationwide move to get young women to vote pro-abortion on college campuses and Kamala Harris’s visit to that abortion clinic in Minnesota was tied in with that whole movement as well. Now, what about politically? Let’s say you say, well, that’s just conjecture. You really can’t say what she says. stands for just based on those symbolic moves she made, although I think we can. What about politically? Well, politically, here’s Kamala Harris’s history. Number one, She has been very outspoken in the U.S. Senate before she ever was vice president. that abortion was a cornerstone of her legislative career. She was the Senate sponsor of the Woman’s Health Protection Act that would have federalized a right to an abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy She called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which says you cannot use Health and Human Services federal funding for abortion procedures. She wants that repealed because she wants taxpayers to fund abortion. she also was part of an effort to repeal conscience clause legislation that would have protected doctors and health care workers who don’t want to be involved in abortion. She was also, when she was Attorney General of California, part of the plan to make pro-life pregnancy centers advertise for abortion or refer for abortion. Now, thankfully, the Supreme Court overturned that thanks to Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch being added to the court. But Kamala Harris would force pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion services. Now, she also was the Senate sponsor of the 2019 Reproductive Health Protection Act, which again. Another attempt to make abortion legal through all 9 months of pregnancy at the federal level. Now, what about structurally? Now, David French is talking about, hey, let’s vote for Harris this time in hopes that down the road we can get a real cleansed and idealized party that will really be firing on all cylinders and will just be great. when that day comes? Well, not so fast. Think about the structural changes you could end up with under a Harris administration. She has agreed with Joe Biden on packing the Supreme Court. In other words, adding members to it to get a pro-abortion majority. In other words, setting aside the constitutional process of getting justices on the court, waiting for vacancies, that is. Rather, she wants to increase the number so that we can have a pro-abortion majority that she can appoint. She also, again, has made it very clear that if she is president, one of the first things she will do is push for a federal law making abortion a constitutional right through all 9 months of pregnancy. How are you going to easily just undo that, David French? Think about Roe v. Wade. It was passed in It took us 50 years to overturn that. These things don’t go away overnight, and a lot of children are going to lose their lives in the meantime waiting for this idealized future where we can be happy as Republicans and say, wow, isn’t it great that we no longer have Trump with us? We no longer are compromised in our view of politics and the world will suddenly love us. Can I tell you something? You’re not going to pick up one GOP vote because you’re nicer to leftists. Leftists hate us. They don’t. oppose us because we’re not nice. They oppose us because their worldview is absolutely contrary to ours. You’re not going to fix that by just somehow presenting this persona that you’re a great guy who now has disowned Donald Trump. and you’re no longer this mean and bad political guy. Well, you know what? Kamala Harris is no rose either. I mean, this is a woman who, by clear historical examples, has slept her way to the top. She had an affair with Willie Brown while she was in California, the former Speaker of the House of California, while he was still married. She’s having an affair with him. She married a man who was a homewrecker who had had affairs with women, including impregnating a house care worker that was in his employ. This is not a good woman either. Her character is as flawed as Donald Trump’s, if not worse, especially when you couple her personal disasters with the policies she wants to bring to bear, which are disastrous for this country. So in what possible world then, where millions of unborn humans will lose their lives over the next 4 years, because of the policies of someone like a Kamala Harris, in what possible world do you say that’s a pro-life vote? I don’t see it. I mean, this is just obvious. And I think we are literally in a culture today where there are some evangelical leaders who want us to simply ignore reality. They’re telling us nothing to see here, nothing to see here, as we’re watching the country explode. And this is just something we’ve got to push back on and say, no, we’re going to be committed to people with common sense And common sense says you don’t vote for a guy or gal who’s going to promote the evil you’re opposing wholesale. Imagine, let’s use the 1860 test that we used in the last episode. It’s 18 60. There’s a candidate sworn to uphold slavery, and that candidate for president has pushed for it when he was in the Senate, He pushed for it at the state level when he was an AG. He pledges to push for it if elected president. And he has made it very clear he will make the continuation of slavery not only a constitutional right, but a centerpiece of everything he does in office. What possible abolitionist of the day would have said, yeah, that’s our guy. That’s who we need to vote for so that we can have the best possible outcome down the road. All we ever have in front of us is the current political cycle. And in that current political cycle, as Christians, We have a duty to limit evil and promote good insofar as possible. I can make an argument that voting for Donald Trump does that, even though he’s far from perfect. What possible world says though, that the way we limit evil and promote good is to vote for the very arsonists who are trying to burn down the pro-life movement. Yeah, the Republicans blew it. They softened their stance on abortion. I’m ticked about that. But you know what? We have a remedy for that. 4 years from now, let’s recapture the platform committees and let’s get pro-life principles put back in place. Let’s do a better job picking our candidates. That’s a much easier and more logical approach in terms of political strategy than voting for the very people who want to put your movement out of business. David French, I have no idea what you’re thinking about, But I will say this, I think what you’re offering here is a French kiss of death to unborn humans. And I don’t see any way A grounded Christian can follow your advice. That’s all for today, folks. Sorry for the rather straightforward bad news, but we’re in a time where the culture is nuts. Again, I want to remind you. Please, if you have not signed up for our course on defending the pro-life view, the Case for Life course, you can do that at scottklusendorf.com. And if you have not yet picked up your copy of the Case for Life second edition, you can also get that at scottklusendorf.com. All right, till next time, folks. We’ll see you then.