On Abortion, Harris and Trump Were Both Right and Both Infuriatingly Wrong
Each candidate made some good points about reproductive freedom and each told some major whoppers.
Democrats support executing babies after birth. Former President Donald Trump wants a federal ban on abortion and on in vitro fertilization (IVF), too. At least, these are some "facts" you might have gleaned if you believed everything said in last night's presidential debate.
The Harris/Trump match-up was both predictable and remarkable in a lot of ways. I'm going to focus on their exchanges regarding reproductive freedom. It was a segment marked by both candidates making some valid (and pro-freedom!) points and both candidates telling some big old whoppers.
Let's start with the lies.
Do Democrats Want To Execute Babies?
Trump said repeatedly that Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, endorse executing babies after birth and implied that this was something actually happening in the U.S. before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. It seems quite ridiculous that anyone would believe this, but for the record: this is not true.
"There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born," as debate moderator Linsey Davis pointed out to Trump last night. Nor have Harris, Walz, or any mainstream Democratic politicians come out in favor of post-birth abortion, which would obviously just be murder.
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Trump kept trying to bolster his lie by referencing the former governor of either West Virginia or Virginia—he mentioned both at various points. One or both of them are baby murder enthusiasts, Trump suggested. "The governor of Virginia said, we put the baby aside, and then we determine what we want to do with the baby," Trump said.
Trump is likely referencing comments made by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in 2019. Northam was discussing what happens if a woman delivers a nonviable fetus or a baby with life-threatening deformities. "The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother," Northam said. Some Republicans ran with this comment to suggest that Northam supported "post-birth abortions," when what he was really discussing was palliative care for babies born fatal or likely fatal conditions.
Trump also kept suggesting last night that the Roe v. Wade regime meant states had to allow unfettered abortion through nine months of pregnancy. But the Roe regime actually allowed states to significantly restrict abortion in later months, and the vast majority did. Then—as is still the case now—only a handful of states opted out of setting legal limits on what point in a pregnancy abortion was banned. Even in these states, the lack of a legal prohibition on later-term abortions does not necessarily mean physicians would actually perform later-term abortions, nor that women were generally seeking them without good reason, like a pregnancy that was life-threatening or a fetus that was nonviable.
That's not to say that late-term abortions desired for other reasons never take place. But late term abortions in general are relatively rare. According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2012, the vast majority of U.S. abortions—upwards of 90 percent—are done in the first trimester (which goes through 13 weeks) and more than 65 percent take place in the first eight weeks. Only 1.3 percent take place at or after 21 weeks.
(I don't know why Democrats never seem prepared to answer the late-term abortion question in a direct way. They would be wise to say something like "I support states restricting abortion in later pregnancy so long as there are adequate exceptions for extenuating circumstances, like situations where a woman's life is threatened or a fetus isn't viable." This seems to be the position that many of them (Harris included) are hinting at, but they never just outright state it, which gives Republicans a foothold to attack them as abortion radicals. Last night, Harris would only say "I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade" when asked whether she supports late-term abortions. It's like they're so worried about staying on message with abortion, or about alienating people who want absolutely no restrictions anywhere, that they forget to try and sound like humans.)
Does Trump Want To Ban Abortion, Ban IVF, and Monitor All Pregnancies?
Harris spread some misinformation and half-truths of her own during the abortion portion of last night's debate. These false claims weren't quite as egregious as Trump's, since wrongly saying that someone and their entire party support infant murder is about as egregious as it gets. But Harris did seem to misrepresent Trump's positions several times, insisting that he supported policies that he does not support.
"If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban," Harris said.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he does not want a nationwide ban on abortion. Under his watch, the GOP removed a nationwide abortion ban plank from the party's platform. Trump has also repeatedly praised the idea of abortion laws being left up to states. I'm not naive enough to think Trump couldn't be persuaded into signing such a ban, should it pass. (And, last night, he wouldn't answer a question about this directly.) But by all indications, it does not appear to be a policy he favors or would be pushing.
Harris' claim here—as with Trump's claims about late-term abortions—were both worded in such a way as to be somewhat or potentially true. Democrats do tend to favor some exceptions for abortion in later pregnancy. It's possible, and perhaps even likely, that Trump would sign a national ban into law (specially if the ban was not total but, say, a 15-week ban). But these are claims clearly meant to invoke more extreme positions than those held in reality.
Harris also suggested IVF was imperiled thanks to Trump and that a Trump administration would be monitoring all pregnancies. "Under Donald Trump's abortion bans, couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments," she said last night.
But in only one state (Alabama) has IVF really been threatened, due to a court's interpretation of pre-Dobbs Alabama law. And this was quickly remedied by the state legislature. What's more, Trump has stated on multiple occasions—including last night—that he supports IVF. His statements on this front often give the impression that he doesn't exactly understand how IVF works, but he's also unequivocally endorsed its protection.
Under Trump, "there would be a national abortion a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages," Harris said last night. Like Trump's claims about Northam's comments, this statement from Harris appears to reference a real thing but misrepresent it.
A bill proposed by Republicans earlier this year would create a pregnancy.gov website and "require states to apply child support obligations to the time period during pregnancy, if so requested by the mother." As Reason's Liz Wolfe explained back in May, "Users of the website could add their contact information if they would like, but they would not be required to, nor would a database attempt to log all the pregnant women in the country." Somehow, this turned into a viral scare story about Republicans trying to create a "
Freedom and Democracy
Harris' best moments in the abortion part of the debate came when she was talking about how abortion bans have affected American women's lives. She conveyed just the right mix of righteous anger, empathy, and outrage when talking about families who very much wanted to have children but either miscarried or experienced life-threatening complications and couldn't get the care they needed because of laws that took effect in the post-Roe world.
"I have talked with women around our country," said Harris to Trump. "You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy at a term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that."
Harris shrewdly focused on abortions of the sort that a majority of Americans support, like situations where a mother's health is at risk or situations where a pregnancy results from rape or incest. These may not represent the majority of situations in which women seek abortions, but they are real issues that have come to the forefront since Roe was overturned, and I think Harris made a good call in highlighting situations like these.
Harris was also smart to frame the issue as one of government overreach, not choice. "Choice" has come to imply—unfairly, if you ask me—an air of frivolity. But freedom from intrusive government means that grave decisions are left between women and their doctors, not bureaucrats. Choice vs. freedom may sound like a subtle difference, but the latter is much more in keeping with current messaging from abortion rights activists in a post-Roe world, and last night, Harris was on trend.
"The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body," she said at one point. "I think the American people believe that certain freedoms—in particular the freedom to make decisions about one's own body—should not be made by the government," she said a little bit later.
Trump also invoked quintessentially American values—like democracy and federalism—when talking about abortion. People "wanted this issue to be brought back to the states, where the people could vote, and that's what happened," Trump said.
"Now, Ohio, the vote was somewhat liberal, Kansas, the vote was somewhat liberal—much more liberal than people would have thought," he continued. "But each individual state is voting. It's the vote of the people. Now, it's not tied up in the federal government."
There is something to the idea that abortion should be a state's issue. On that, I know I'm at odds with a lot of abortion rights supporters. But it seems that rather than trying to set a one-size-fits-all policy on such a contentious and momentous issue, we'd be better served to help people in states with restrictive laws change those laws through the democratic process, help ensure humane exceptions to bans so that women's lives and health aren't threatened, and put more resources into helping those who need to travel out of state for an abortion do so. We can also help ensure that ballot measures supporting reproductive freedom aren't unfairly held up by GOP officials (as we've been seeing recently in a lot of states).
It's been exciting to see Americans across the country vote in favor of reproductive freedom. It showcases what anyone looking behind hyper-partisan mudslinging or super-activist rhetoric knows: that Americans are largely libertarian and moderate on abortion. In their own ways, both Trump and Harris implicitly acknowledged this last night.
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