Where does Harris’ unconditional support for abortion rights come from? According to colleagues, friends, and Harris’ public statements, this is anything but new.
In California, she made her name as a prosecutor who championed abortion rights, and as attorney general, she championed numerous abortion issues that had nationwide consequences, most notably her investigations into allegations that Planned Parenthood sold fetal remains and her support for regulating anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
“For as long as I’ve known her, this has always been a central issue,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, a former Democratic Assembly member who has known Harris for more than 20 years and worked with her on several statewide campaigns against ballot measures that would have required doctors to inform parents before performing abortions on minors.
This record lends credibility to her reproductive rights platform, but also makes her a target of anti-abortion activists who label Harris an extremist.
“The party that demanded that abortion should be ‘safe, legal and rare’ is long gone,” said Marjorie Dannefelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a press release about the 2024 Democratic National Convention platform. “They ignore the majority of women facing unwanted pregnancies who want real solutions to keep their children, not more pressure to have abortions. And they lack the courage to tell the truth about their agenda, which seeks to go even further than Roe by passing a national abortion requirement for all trimesters.”
Investigation of an anti-abortion group
As Attorney General, Harris first intervened in the highly explosive national abortion debate in April 2016, when investigators from the California Department of Justice searched the home of anti-abortion activist David Daleiden and confiscated a laptop and hard drives.
Nine months earlier, Daleiden released videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood executives illegally selling fetal remains. The videos showed secretly filmed conversations by Planned Parenthood executives about abortion procedures and the harvesting and distribution of tissue to research companies. At least 13 government investigations, including ones launched by Republican lawmakers, have since debunked the claims made by Daleiden in the videos.
Under U.S. law, it is legal to donate fetal tissue to researchers and recover the associated costs, but states can impose additional regulations.
But at the time, the videos sparked a storm of outrage across the country, and they are circulating on social media again this election cycle.
Conservatives called Harris’ investigation of Daleiden a political inquisition. Anti-abortion activists protested the raid, and some California Republicans called on Harris to investigate Planned Parenthood instead of Daleiden.
She did not comment publicly on Daleiden.
“Harris never held a press conference. She didn’t,” said Dan Morain, a former CalMatters editor who wrote a biography of the vice president titled Kamala’s Way, An American Life“She did what prosecutors must do, which is not try the case publicly.”
The evidence collected by Harris’ Justice Department formed the basis of 15 charges (PDF) that then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra later filed against Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt, alleging that they recorded conversations without their consent, in violation of state law.
At the time, Daleiden called the allegations “false.” He insists that he was exercising his First Amendment rights when he recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood representatives and that the recordings were lawfully made in public places.
“Instead of prosecuting the individuals and organizations caught on tape commercially exploiting fetal tissue transfer, the Attorney General instead targeted Daleiden and Merritt,” court documents filed by Daleiden’s attorney said.
Kathy Kneer, executive director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, rejected the notion that Harris had given the organization “any special favors.” Instead, the organization was obligated to provide investigators with reams of documents, she said.
“They really put pressure on us and did everything within the law,” Kneer said.
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California declined to be interviewed for this article. The organization supports Harris.
The criminal case against Daleiden is ongoing, with a jury trial scheduled for December. The state Supreme Court most recently denied an appeal by Daleiden and Merritt in 2023, allowing the jury trial to proceed. In 2019, a civil jury ruled against Daleiden and awarded Planned Parenthood $2.2 million in damages, which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed by dismissing Daleiden’s appeal in federal court in 2023.
Supported California’s Pregnancy Center Regulation Act
Around the same time, Harris sponsored a bill in the House to regulate crisis pregnancy centers. Some say it was a relatively risky move that backfired when the U.S. Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion groups and struck down the law.
“She went way out on a limb on this issue by supporting the bill,” Morain said. “It’s quite obvious that it wouldn’t necessarily be considered constitutional.”
The law – seemingly simple – requires crisis pregnancy centers to post a notice stating that comprehensive family planning services, including contraception and abortion, are available through government public programs.
Crisis pregnancy centers are often religious organizations that seek to prevent women from having abortions. While they offer free diapers, parenting classes and other social services, abortion rights activists also accuse them of misleading women about the dangers of abortion and contraception – a charge many centers deny.
The owners of the centers and the anti-abortion movement vehemently opposed the law, saying the government was forcing them to promote something they fundamentally disagree with.
“It was not right, it was not fair and it was clearly unconstitutional,” said Thomas Glessner, president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a legal organization with about 155 member pregnancy centers in California.
Almost immediately after then-Governor Jerry Brown signed this law, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates filed a lawsuit to stop it.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law (PDF), citing the First Amendment. Since then, lawmakers across the country have struggled to regulate pregnancy centers. There are at least 176 pregnancy centers in California, according to a 2023 CalMatters analysis.
“We won the case and it was celebrated by many free speech advocates as … the most significant free speech case in a generation,” Glessner said.
Although the bill was defeated, supporters don’t necessarily see it as a blow to Harris’ record. Chiu, the bill’s co-author, said he believes the law is narrowly drafted and would have remained in place had former President Donald Trump not appointed three justices to the Supreme Court during his term in office.
Abortion on the ballot after Roe
Harris’ public messages on abortion have been remarkably consistent throughout her career. She has repeatedly credited her work as a local prosecutor specializing in sex crimes against women and children for condemning total and near-total abortion bans that make no exceptions for rape or incest.
“The idea that states would pass laws that would take away an individual’s right to self-determination after suffering such a horrific act of violence is unconscionable,” Harris said in 2022 during a forum on reproductive rights with California lawmakers.
During the campaign, Republican presidential candidate Trump has said he will not sign a national ban and has urged the Republican National Committee to take a more moderate stance that suggests but does not directly recognize the personification of the fetus. He has championed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying the issue must be decided by individual states.
