Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 14, 2024 / 17:20 pm

Kamala Harris became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic when she toured a Planned Parenthood facility in Minneapolis on Thursday.

While at the clinic Harris met with the staff and toured the facility. After touring the clinic Harris took questions from reporters. She praised abortion providers and lashed out at lawmakers advancing pro-life legislation.

“How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest,” Harris said.

“In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral.”

The vice president, who is the first woman to hold the office, made the stop while on her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour in which she has been touting the Biden administration’s pro-abortion agenda ahead of the 2024 election.

On the tour, Harris has decried state and national pro-life laws, calling them a “full-on attack” on women’s rights, and advocated for a national law enshrining Roe v. Wade.

Bishop Michael Burbidge, head of the Diocese of Arlington and chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, responded to the visit by denouncing Harris’ decision to promote abortion.

“I am distressed to learn that the vice president is visiting an abortion clinic when there are so many agencies and organizations who are at the service of life that she could visit,” Burbidge told CNA. “She could learn about all they do to welcome every child, and how they support and accompany the mothers and fathers, especially those in need.”

Minnesota passed a new law last year that repealed several pro-life protections and allows abortion up until birth. According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Minnesota is also one of 17 states that uses state tax dollars to fund almost half of its abortions.

Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life, bashed Harris for using Minnesota to make a political point in favor of abortion.

“The Biden administration looks at Minnesota as an abortion haven, and they think that’s what we want. But that is not what Minnesotans want, and together we’ll work to restore commonsense protections for women and babies,” Blaeser told CNA.

“Minnesota is an outlier after enacting an abortion-up-to-birth law and abolishing a program that supported pregnant women. That’s why Vice President Harris came here. But unlimited abortion harms women and children. Most Minnesotans don’t want what Harris, Biden, and DFL lawmakers are selling,” she said in a separate statement obtained by CNA.

Brian Gibson, CEO of the Minnesota-based Pro-Life Action Ministries, was among a group of prayerful protestors outside the abortion clinic during Harris’ visit. He told CNA that the Planned Parenthood Harris visited is the main abortion clinic in the state at which most of the abortions are committed. Harris’ visit, he said, signals that the Biden administration is “all in for abortion.”

“They’re making it their hallmark issue,” he said, adding that “they want to normalize abortion as if it’s like having a tooth pulled.”

Though he condemns the Biden administration’s abortion politics, Gibson said he prays for their conversion and hopes they “come to know Christ.”