Pro-life voices in the US have criticised the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as former vice president Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2020 election.

Fordham University professor Charles Camosy, who left the Democratic Party earlier this year over the party’s stance on abortion, said that for Catholics “in favor of prenatal justice, and of government defending these children from terrible violence, we must say that Harris is a deeply flawed candidate”.

“Unreserved praise of her VP candidacy is, in effect, yet another example of erasure of the prenatal child,” Camosy said on Twitter.

Democrats for Life of America said in a statement that she “does not provide pro-life Democrats with any assurances and will, in fact, further alienate 21 million Democratic voters who have been left out of the party for quite some time.”

Michael Sean Winters, a writer for the National Catholic Reporter, was critical of Harris’ 2018 questioning of a judicial nominee over his membership of the Knights of Columbus, calling her treatment of Brian C. Buescher “embarrassing in both its ignorance and its bigotry.”

National Review writer Alexandra DeSanctis made a similar observation, saying Harris’s time on the Senate judiciary committee had shown “reprehensible anti-Catholic bigotry, and there’s no reason to believe her views have changed.”

Several commentators from across the political divide also noted Harris’ noted support for unlimited access to abortion.