When ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis asked President Donald Trump why women should trust him on the issue of abortion, he quickly pivoted to question the pro-abortion extremism of Harris, Walz, and their fellow progressive Democrats. The former president pointed to their substantial record of support for late-term, partial-birth, and “born-alive” abortions:
They’re radical. The Democrats are radical in that … Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. … You should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month? Ninth month? Seventh month?
Harris immediately dismissed him, but Trump doubled down, asking her directly, “Would you do that?” He continued:
You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month, and probably after birth. Just look at the former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia said, ‘We put the baby aside, and then we determine what we want to do with the baby.’
But Harris just laughed his point off again, saying, “That’s not true.” She didn’t need to provide any other answer because ABC moderator Linsey Davis chimed in with a well-timed fact check: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
The only problem with the moderator’s intervention is that the clam was completely false.
Though late-term abortion procedures often begin with the severing of the umbilical cord or the administration of a lethal injection into the amniotic sac, head, or heart, the Charlotte Lozier Institute reports that nearly 70 percent of late-term abortion providers report that they “do not induce fetal demise before beginning the abortion.” If the infant is born alive before the abortionist can kill it, the child’s chances at life depend on the state in which he or she is born.
Take Gov. Tim Walz’s home state of Minnesota, for example. Just last year, Walz legalized infanticide in the state by surreptitiously altering language in a bill to legalize the “denial of life-saving medical care to infants born alive after botched abortions.”
Since 1976, Minnesota law had required physicians to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” But Walz stripped down the language to simply require “care for the infant who is born alive,” allowing medical personnel to withhold life-saving care should the mother so choose. A child born alive in an abortion attempt might not be killed by the same methods used in utero — crushed by forceps or injected with a lethal dose — but deliberate negligence is no less nefarious.
Democrats would quibble about the terminology: Minnesota doesn’t technically have a law that says physicians can kill infants. But they do have laws that allow mothers and medical personnel to perform an abortion, the intent of which is to kill the unborn child. And if things don’t go as planned and the child is born alive, mothers and medical personnel cannot be held responsible for achieving their original intent through different means — even if that means turning their backs on a helpless infant. (RELATED: The Debate Was Fixed)
Walz is extreme on abortion to the point that even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked him to “tone it down.” But his fellow Democrats are equally comfortable with infanticide.
The House of Representatives voted in January 2023 on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required physicians to preserve the life and health of the child and transport the child born alive to a hospital for continued care. Every Democrat save one voted against the act.
Dogmatic Democrat opposition to saving the lives of children born amid an abortion procedure provides cover for abortionists. D.C.-based abortionist Cesare Santangelo notoriously stated that, if the mother “delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure … we would not help it.” Santangelo’s clinic came under additional scrutiny from the pro-life movement when the remains of 115 children were found in a box of medical waste from the clinic, including five babies who were killed by late-term or born-alive abortions.
It’s no surprise that Harris didn’t want to answer Trump’s questions about where she’d draw the line on abortion access. Pro-abortion extremists don’t like discussing late-term abortions, and most Americans don’t support abortion without gestational limits.
Harris has been an outspoken abortion radical for years. She doesn’t believe in limits. But now she’s running for president, and her views on abortion are wildly out of step with American voters, 66 percent of whom agree that “abortion should be legal in, at most, the first three months of a pregnancy.”
Florida’s Amendment 4, which provided the ostensible pretext for ABC’s original question to Trump, would strike down the state’s current six-week abortion and prevent gestational limits on when women can procure abortions. Trump said on Tuesday night that he plans to vote against it. (RELATED: ABC Moderators Go After Trump. Harris Remains Blurry.)
And though the former president’s personal convictions give many pro-life activists cause for doubt — he struggles to present a coherent view beyond opposition to late-term or born-alive abortions, for example — the political calculations are apparent. American voters simply do not have the luxury of pretending that the cause of life would fare better under Harris. The solutions offered by a second Trump term might not be ideal, but he is willing to acknowledge some of the evils carried out under our current abortion regime.
Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
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