Vice President Kamala Harris thinks that the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson is comparable to slavery. “Our country has a history of controlling bodies,” she said in a speech to the NAACP. “Today,” she said, “extremist so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors, punishing women from making healthcare decisions for themselves.” Her remarks were met with thunderous applause. But a post-Roe world is not one of slavery-in fact, it is the opposite. A world without abortion grants the right to life and self-determination to millions of children, including black and brown children, who would never have made it if Kamala Harris had her way.
Slavery is an abhorrent and dangerous evil. In the United States, slavery was a part of our society until almost 100 years after our founding. A slave, as defined by Merriam-Webster is “a person held in forced servitude” and by extension, a person whose rights have been removed, or has no choice in how they live. So Vice President is correct to say that slavery is the ownership of human bodies. But is she correct to say that abortion is much the same thing? Let’s dive deeper.
Certain rights have been established in our nation. Our founding documents remind us that God has given us the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” which cannot be taken away by state and federal governments without due process of law. Enslaved people in the United States were certainly denied all these rights, without due process. One right that is not guaranteed in the constitution, however, is the right to choose to kill your child. If a woman does not have this right (which she most certainly does not), then abortion is morally abhorrent. Pro-lifers, then, are not controlling a woman’s body; we are merely protecting the body of an innocent child whose life is under threat.
And what about this innocent child? Don’t they receive the protections guaranteed under the constitution? Are they allowed access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Before Roe v. Wade, the answer was “It depends,” mostly on the will of the mother. After Dobbs v. Jackson, the answer is still “Only in some places,” as some states roll out protections for the unborn while others expand access to abortion.
If Vice President Harris submits that our nation has had a history of controlling bodies, she must examine her own policies. In her worldview, a woman should be free to control the body of her child. Who, then, is the slave in this situation?
Kamala Harris has got it backwards. The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson is most certainly not comparable with slavery, but abortion is. While abortion is legal in Minnesota, thousands of children are denied fundamental rights every single year. For Minnesotans, this is a call to action. We must rid our state of abortion, and through God’s help, we will.
