Kamala Harris, Mahsa Amini, and A Woman’s Right to Choose

Maybe because I have only lived in the United States since 2011, and have been an American citizen since 2016, I look at the U.S., American politics, and social issues differently than someone born in the U.S. But I am no less a proud American, and am deeply concerned about the well-being of our beloved country and all Americans. And I am deeply concerned about Kamala Harris.

I would be excited to see a woman become president of the United States, but not Kamala.  Through her campaign, women are being objectified and encouraged to vote for her, not based on her qualifications or platform, but as a woman.  Further, as she strives to break the ultimate glass ceiling, Kamala represents a shallow platform that the only rights of significance to women are a “woman’s right to choose.” This is dangerous because it exclusively defines a woman’s right to choose as being about abortion, not about actual freedom.

Having been born and raised in Iran, under a tyrannous and extremist Islamic society, my views on women’s rights are much broader, and much more about life and death issues for all women. That’s why as a Christian, Iranian American woman, I will not be  voting for Kamala because she represents values that endanger women in the Middle East and around the world.

I could speak for weeks about the harsh conditions in which I was raised and had to endure. I have written two books about being persecuted as a woman, and because of my faith. I have countless scars of extremist Islam, including the torture and death of my husband, breaking apart of my family, being arrested, imprisoned and interrogated, misogyny in every aspect of life, and the execution of my closest friend.

 As much as I suffered, as do many Iranian women, and women in Islamic societies throughout the world, no recent example is more vivid than the murder two years ago this week of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa was arrested and brutally tortured to death by the Iranian “morality police” for the “crime” of not wearing her hijab “properly.” Her murder triggered the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement across Iran and around the world.  I can assure you that no Iranian women, or women being subjugated anywhere in the Islamic world, think for a moment about their “right” to have an abortion, not as the most important issue facing women as Kamala Harris would have you believe, and not anywhere on their top ten list of women’s rights issues.

It’s not only that Kamala dismisses the abuse of actual rights facing hundreds of millions of women around the world, and as such endangers them, by marketing the only “right” that’s important is the “right to choose.”  By doing so, Kamala threatens women everywhere, and threatens America’s Judeo-Christian values.

Making matters worse, time and again I have seen Kamala speaking at events standing next to and being embraced by well-known agents of the Islamic regime. This included leaders of the National Iranian American Council, NIAC, who have entrenched themselves at the highest levels of American society. Any average Iranian knows NIAC and its supporters pose a huge threat to America and the world, and of course women.

Because I love America, it’s urgent expose the lies and agenda of the Islamic regime’s agents in our midst, especially those embraced by people like Kamala, and those who she embraces.

How can Kamala be so indifferent to the suffering of Iranian women who have been persecuted, abused, and murdered because of not having a proper Islamic hijab, or being subservient to men? How can Kamala close her eyes to the women whose faces were scarred permanently by radical Muslims throwing acid into their faces for not obeying the strict Islamic rules? How can she embrace agents of the Iranian regime who threaten women everywhere?

How can she stand with and appease the enemies of our allies such as Hamas which massacred and kidnapped many innocent Israelis, and dozens of Americans?  As a woman, how can her policies (much less who she associates with) not reflect the simple truth that the savage Islamic terrorists responsible for killing, kidnapping, raping, sexually mutilating, and dragging the bodies of innocent women through the streets of Gaza are the enemies of all women?

When Kamala declares, “We will fight against anti-Muslim rhetoric. We are going to fight for our Muslim brothers and sisters,” while standing with the members of NIAC, she sentences women around the world to lives with no choice and no freedom.

It’s not only the oppression of women in Iran that she enables.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban recently passed a law preventing women from showing their faces or hearing their voices in public.  The “Muslim brothers and sisters” she is fighting for practice the prevalent Islamic crime of female genital mutilation. And that which “Muslim brothers” brazenly call “honor killings,” leave countless women dead at the hands of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. My own brother was told by a mullah to kill me for becoming a Christian, and he would be protected.

For decades, Iranians have struggled against the Islamic regime. Obama, Biden, and now Kamala, have emboldened and funded the Iranian regime and its terrorist tentacles around the world, subjecting women to unspeakable horrors.

Instead of fighting for our Judeo-Christian values, she’s fighting for dangerous Islamic values that threaten women’s rights everywhere. A Kamala presidency will empower radical Muslims to achieve their goal dominating America and the whole word; to convert everyone to Islam through force.

Women who have been subjugated by misogynist Islamic rules and societies, who have been beaten, disfigured, imprisoned, and murdered, do not care about Kamala’s “right to choose.” If America does not wake up to stop appeasing the Islamic regime and all it represents, these same threats to women here are not far away. The only “choice” we will have is what color hijab to wear.

Anyone who cares about Judeo-Christian values, and who see a woman’s rights as being more than being about abortion would be foolish to vote for Kamala.

America needs a strong leader who will fight for America, its core values on the right side of history, to preserve our future, and truly to protect women’s rights. Kamala Harris is not that person.

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Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and activist for religious freedom. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran. She can be reached at www.MarzisJourney.com.