An open letter to Kamala Harris

Dear Madam Vice President,

How could the election have turned out like this? Many people have expressed surprise and dismay at the results of the 2024 election, particularly in our county, Deschutes, where 53 percent of the population voted for you and in our state, Oregon, where over 55 percent of the population voted for you. I have been reflecting on my own personal view of this election and I would like to share it with you because I do not think the thoughts are mine alone.

The older I get, the more I study and appreciate the book that guides my life, the Bible. I know that I am not the only one in Sisters, in Oregon, or in this country that believes the Bible is the very words of God, written through human authors. Because I submit my life to God, I submit my life to the revelation of Him recorded in the Bible.

First of all, I believe that God is the Author of life. Jesus is specifically called that title by Peter, one of His disciples. In addition, we can turn the pages of our Bible all the way back to Genesis 2, where God breathed into Adam the breath of life. Turn one page further back to read that God created man and woman in His own image. Every human being is valued as an image-bearer of God. This is not truth that I have somehow devised in my own thinking, this is truth that has been recorded for thousands of years. You may not agree with this truth, Ms. Harris, but millions upon millions of people over the past two millennia have lived by this truth.

Another truth contained in the Bible is that God knits a person together in their mother’s womb. Science has explanations for the fertilization of a female egg by a male sperm and the ensuing cell divisions and differentiation that grows into a developing baby, but science has absolutely no explanation for the spark of life. At what point do physical cells take on the thoughts, consciousness, and emotions of the human spirit? The biblical view maintains that God has this role in every human being, as the Author of life and the One who knits humans together.

So when does life begin? The answer could lie in the discussion around fetal viability, usually defined by when the fetus is no longer dependent on its mother’s womb for survival. Naming the time period for fetal viability is usually in a range of 20-28 weeks, and shifts according to advances in medicine and the availability of equipment and professionals to attend to a preterm delivery.

However, the question I would like to ask is, how viable is the healthy, full-term baby that leaves the hospital with its parents and is not attended to? A full-term baby one week past delivery is no less dependent on the mother’s care than the one that remains in her womb. For that matter, a two-year-old is completely dependent on a caregiver. At what point is a human child truly self-sustaining? Is that when we proclaim the child “alive”?

The biblical view that I submit to protects life in a woman’s womb. The life God has created should not be snuffed out by human hands before it is born. The Bible also challenges me to “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy.” The conclusion, for a follower of Jesus, is that I am charged to protect the unborn. For this, Ms. Harris, you have labeled me as “extremist.”

In this week since the election, I viewed one of your campaign videos online in which you addressed an audience to say, “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.” I hope I have shown you in brief that I would have to abandon my deeply held faith to not tell women that ending a pregnancy is ending a life. And the same Bible that guides me in these principles also teaches me that governing authorities have been instituted by God, sent for the purpose of punishing those who do wrong. The government’s very purpose is to establish the rule of law, including protecting life.

The election on November 5, 2024, has demonstrated that there is a large portion of America, measured both geographically and by headcount, who do not share the opinion that the right to abortion should be federally protected throughout a pregnancy for any and all reasons. There are valid discussions that must be had regarding protecting the mother’s life and how to approach victims of sexual assault. However, online research indicates that about 12 percent of abortions are due to concerns for the health of the mother and/or the fetus and only one percent of abortions are connected with sexual assault. This means that over 85 percent of abortions are conducted for convenience or preference on the part of the mother.

Ms. Harris, the major focus of your presidential campaign was on abortion rights, under the banner of “reproductive freedom.” I absolutely believe in a woman’s right to choose whether to be sexually active and whether to use birth control. But, as with every other freedom in society, it comes with a responsibility. This responsibility includes recognizing that these choices could result in a pregnancy. Once a pregnancy has begun, the woman has already exercised her reproductive freedom and another life is initiated. This life is a genetically different human being from her and is most certainly not her body. That separate life contained within her body is desperately relying on her for sustenance. If you don’t agree with me, Ms. Harris, I suggest you look at the results of the 2024 election to evaluate whether the biblical view or your view is the more extreme. I hope you can see, Madam Vice President, that my values are not driven by hatred of women (I am one), but by a passionate love for God and the new life He creates.

This writing is in no way an attempt to argue for Donald Trump. My biblical convictions also include classifying at least some immigrants as the “afflicted and the destitute… the weak and the needy,” so a candidate that labels immigrants indiscriminately as murderers and animals, then institutes policies in accord with that sentiment, does not have my support either. But that’s another letter.

Sincerely, Lisa May