I will not vote for hypocrites. I am not voting for Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris, the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in history, is a hypocrite.

So was I.

In 1982, my girlfriend, Sandy, was pregnant. I was the father.

Sandy and I were in graduate school. She believed in a woman’s right to choose, and that abortion was a reproductive choice. We spoke in clinical terms, referring to that growing human inside her as a thing. She had plans and raising a child — then — would destroy them. She feared she would resent our baby. “I am afraid I will end up hating him,” she said.

Sandy was brilliant, decent and kind. She would have been a great mom. And I know if I had given her encouragement, rather than silence, she would not have aborted our baby.

But I accepted her reasoning though I knew, deep down, it was a lie. I was in my mid-twenties. I too had plans and a pregnancy would interfere.  

The night of the abortion, I was lying in bed. The silence outside was painful. I heard an animal crying and moaning. I think it was dying.

That animal was speaking to me. “You are the worst type of hypocrite,” it said. I had let a woman make a horribly wrong decision while keeping my hands clean. I had no defense.

In 2006, long after Sandy and I broke up, she called me. I had not spoken to her in 23 years. We spoke easily. Then she brought up our baby. Sandy no longer used terms like “woman’s right to choose,” or “clump of cells.”

She was crying. “Our baby would be 25 now,” she said.

“I’m sorry how it turned out,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

Those who speak of abortion as a good thing, even virtuous, never mention this kind of anguish.

In 1987, I married Ellen. We believed our relationship was special.

In 1993, Ellen became pregnant with Kevin and Daniel. As they grew, she would rub her belly and say, “I have two babies.” She was happy and proud.

Then at 24 weeks, Ellen began having abdominal pain.  

She was hospitalized and then went into labor. It was busy in the maternity ward. She was neglected for the first two hours of her labor. When the staff finally checked, they rushed her into surgery and performed an emergency C-section.

Our boys lived 70 and 90 minutes. They were perfect. Tiny, 1 ½ pounds each. Fingers and hands and closed eyes. Lying side-by-side. A nurse took them to Ellen. She was drugged. She said they were “so beautiful.”

We had one daughter, born in 1996. Then Ellen suffered two more miscarriages. We gave up trying to have children.

Our marriage began to die when we lost our twins. We claimed to be Catholics but had no relationship with God. Without faith to help us, we handled our grief in destructive ways. We divorced.

Politicians who reduce babies in utero to cells or choices or abstractions show no real empathy for such agony, no understanding that every human life has incalculable value in God’s eyes.

In 2015, I married Kim. She had adopted six children from the foster system, ranging from 8 months to 4 years of age. “I could not say, ‘No,’ when a social worker called,” she said. When she was forced to divorce her husband, she became a single mother raising six children. All are now adults.

I am now a believer in Christ. I do my best to follow His example — and my wife’s — and not be hypocritical. Hypocrisy has no place in a Christ-centered life.

Being a believer does not mean cherry-picking the rules you like while ignoring the rest. It does not mean presenting yourself as devout for political gain.

Kamala Harris is actively courting black voters at their places of worship. She “has a unique and interesting religious identity,” said Nathan Finn of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Referring to her Baptist and Hindu roots, he added, “I don’t know that we’ve had another president who is this religiously diverse ...”

Diverse or not, Harris does not follow the teachings of either religion. She is being lauded as something she is not, a “woman of faith.”    

Her childhood church, the 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, is affiliated with Church of God Ministries. The Church of God opposes abortion, except when the health of the mother is at risk. “Abortion is not the will of God,” the church says.

The Hindu religion similarly condemns abortion.

Abortion opposition is not a minor tenet of these faiths. They believe in the sanctity of human life.

Yet during a 2022 speech to the National Baptist Convention, Harris branded those believers opposed to abortion, people fighting for the sanctity of human life, as “extremists.” In effect, she was describing those who attend church beside her.

Harris has been presenting herself as devout while condemning the teachings of her own church. This is hypocrisy of the highest order. She does not deserve our vote.