Predictably, the issue of abortion was one of the first to come up during Tuesday night’s presidential debate on ABC.
And predictably, both the moderators and Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn’t let pesky facts get in the way of their shared agenda.
Harris refused to identify a single limit on abortion that she would support. And what she did say was sometimes outright false. She implied, for instance, that pregnant women can’t receive miscarriage care in pro-life states. That’s not true.
She said that women don’t get an abortion after carrying a pregnancy to term. What does she mean by “term”? Thousands of late-term abortions happen every year.
One of ABC’s co-hosts, Linsey Davis, also distorted the truth when she claimed that no states let babies who survive abortions be allowed to die.
That’s also false. In many states, babies who survive abortions have no legal protections.
Here’s what Americans deserve to know:
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Fact #1: Late-term abortion is legal and far more common than many people realize.
Almost two dozen states have no limits on abortion at all or allow abortion after viability for “health” reasons. Health is often defined broadly, beyond a life-threatening emergency.
In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent abortion data report, more than 4,000 babies were aborted after 21 weeks’ gestation in 2021. At that stage—if given proper medical care—many premature babies can survive.
Regrettably, the real number is higher than 4,000 because radically pro-abortion states such as California and New York don’t submit any abortion data.
Fact #2: Late-term abortions are elective more often than people realize.
Study after study show that women getting late-term abortions largely do so for the same reasons as women who get abortions before viability. Even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” In an Atlantic magazine profile, an abortionist in Colorado who “specializes” in late-term abortion discussed performing sex-selection abortions and said at least half his abortions are on babies who were perfectly healthy.
Fact #3: It’s legal in many states to simply allow a baby who survives an abortion to suffer death by neglect.
In more than half the states, no law fully protects babies who survive an abortion. That means an abortionist can simply abandon such a baby to die and yet suffer no legal consequences. That’s exactly what former President Donald Trump is talking about when he says some states allow abortion after birth. Whatever you call it—a post-birth abortion, infanticide, death by neglect—it’s immoral and inhumane.
Fact #4: This is not a theoretical problem: Babies can and do survive abortions.
Few states actually report data on instances of born-alive infants, and many of those states have gone on to largely prohibit abortion in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
But from the limited reporting we do have, the facts are disturbing. In just the past few years, there have been 43 documented cases in five states. The CDC estimated that between 2003 and 2014, there were 143 cases.
Melissa Ohden and the Abortion Survivors Network powerfully put faces and names to survivor stories. These men and women are with us today because they beat the odds and survived an abortionist’s attempt to end their life.
The sad truth is that we don’t know exactly how many babies are born alive and left to die in most states, especially those with radically pro-abortion policies. But we do know that the number is greater than zero. Surely, we can agree that any single instance is a travesty and an injustice.
Fact #5: Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, don’t think born-alive babies deserve full legal protections.
As a senator, Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required that babies who survive an abortion receive the same medical care that would be provided to a “wanted” baby.
Walz signed legislation allowing elective abortion at any stage of pregnancy in Minnesota and gutted the state’s born-alive protections. Just a few years ago, five babies were born alive in Minnesota and left to die. How many more will suffer the same fate?
Abortion will continue to be a hot topic leading up to the election in November. The difference between the candidates’ positions is stark.
Harris can’t name a single limit on abortion that she would support, and supports a bill that would legalize elective abortion through all nine months and repeal every existing pro-life law in the states.
Trump supports the post-Dobbs legal landscape that has allowed roughly half the states to enact pro-life laws that reflect the will of the people.
On abortion policy, facts matter. Unfortunately, far too many people won’t face some cold, hard truths. Healthy babies are aborted when they’re old enough to live outside the womb. Babies can—and do—survive abortion attempts. In many states, abortionists can abandon these tiny, helpless boys and girls to die by denying them proper medical care.
The status quo is appalling. Surely, we as a country can do better than this.
LifeNews Note: Melanie Israel writes for The Daily Signal, where this column originally appeared. She is a research associate for the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
