During their first presidential debate, Vice President Harris reminded viewers that Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who were pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade, effectively limiting abortion in many states.

After a week of mostly inchoate responses to pointed questions about how she would govern as president, Vice President Kamala Harris has returned to her roots by holding an “abortion rights” rally in Houston.

It makes sense that she would close the antepenultimate week before the election with an event focused on the only topic on which the vice president can speak somewhat coherently; the only issue on which she doesn’t have to stick her finger in the wind to determine her position.

After the week she had, she needed something that at least felt like a win.

She brought Beyoncé along for added star-power, or perhaps to sing over Harris’ inevitably awkward tangle of words, because “it is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.” Or something like that.

Vice President Kamala Harris hugs Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on stage during a during a rally at Shell Energy Stadium on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. Aaron E. Martinez/American-State USA TODAY NETWORK

As with the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats have leaned heavily into their abortion-rights messaging this cycle, especially when talking to suburban women and the ever-elusive undecided voter.

Harris’ recent media blitz with former congresswoman (and evidently, former conservative) Liz Cheney, has focused on what Cheney referred to as the “untenable” situation many women have found themselves in after the undoing of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized unfettered abortion nationwide.

During their campaign stops, Cheney, like Harris, offered exaggerations and repeated outright lies about women dying because of some more restrictive state abortion laws.

Indeed, many such assertions have been thoroughly debunked: the women in Georgia to whom they referred died tragically from gross medical malpractice, not the state law (which includes medical exceptions) they blame.

But, unlike her opponent, Harris is seldom challenged with a fact check.

Meanwhile, according to the pro-abortion-rights Society of Family Planning, the number of abortions in the U.S. has reportedly increased since Dobbs, largely due to broader use of the abortion pill. It’s a sad but predictable consequence of placing limits on a perceived but entirely fabricated right.

It’s also proof that the real battleground in the fight against abortion has always been in hearts, not laws.

The biggest abortion news from Harris actually happened earlier, when the Democratic nominee told NBC news that she would not be open to concessions, including “religious exemptions.” While she did not elaborate, presumably such exceptions would apply to medical practitioners who had conscience objections to performing abortions, or individuals for whom indirectly paying for others’ abortions as part of their medical insurance would violate the tenets of their faith.

“We should not be making concessions when we are talking about a fundamental freedom,” Harris said, shutting down further discussion on the topic.

Harris often speaks vehemently about her commitment to upholding the law and the Constitution. She has repeatedly insisted recently that her “fascist” opponent, Donald Trump, feels no such sense of obligation.

Her comments to NBC, however, suggest that she is less committed to our founding documents than she claims.

The Constitution does not speak to any “right” to abortion; it does, however, very specifically address the fundamental right to religious freedom and expression.

As a candidate with a long career in the law, Harris most certainly knows this. She just doesn’t care.

Truthfully, there are two “pro-choice” candidates in the race.

Trump, much to the chagrin of the Harris campaign, has proved himself to be capricious on abortion.

His softening on the subject has somewhat dulled Harris’ attempt to paint him as an extremist.

In reality, there is nothing more extreme than casually telegraphing a plan to suspend the Constitution in an effort to enshrine an imagined right into law.

What that might mean in practice for devout people of faith — that they would be forced to perform, pay for or facilitate in other ways a practice that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs — should raise as many alarm bells as Trump’s reckless comments about his generals or whatever else has spurred the latest “but he’s a fascist” frenzy.

Of course, we’ve seen this playbook before.

It was not so long ago that a group of Catholic nuns fought a health care mandate that they believe rendered them a facilitator in their employees’ access to free contraceptives, including contraceptives that can function as abortifacients.

President Barack Obama’s administration could have easily granted the Little Sisters of the Poor an exemption that lifted the undue burden on their religious freedom.

Instead, it doubled down and lost big when the eight sitting Supreme Court Justices found in favor of the sisters.

That was June 2016.

What happened only a few months later?

Donald Trump was elected.

Let that be a lesson to Harris.

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