5 highlights from the Biden-Trump debate: Abortion, illegal immigration and golf
2. Trump, Biden spar about abortion policy
In response to a question asking if he would block “abortion medication,” also known as chemical abortions and the abortion pill, if reelected president, Trump noted that “the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill and I agree with their decision to have done that.” After vowing that he “will not block it,” Trump used his platform to discuss his support for allowing individual states to decide abortion policy and exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency.
Trump transitioned into describing Democrats as “radical” on the issue of abortion. “They will take the life of a child in the eighth month and ninth month and even after birth,” he said.
The former president cited 2019 comments by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, who suggested that under a proposed Virginia law, an “unviable” newborn would be “kept comfortable” and only be “resuscitated” if the parents wanted the baby as an example to back up his assertion that Democrats support abortion “after birth.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Biden condemned the idea of allowing states to decide abortion policy as a “terrible thing,” insisting that “The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying we’re going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule.” When asked if he supported “any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy,” Biden responded, “I support Roe v. Wade,” referring to the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Biden outlined how the decision, which was overturned in 2022 by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, legalized abortions throughout the first trimester while allowing restrictions later in a pregnancy. After Biden suggested that politicians should not be “making decisions about a woman’s health,” he said it was up to the woman and the state to decide in the third trimester.
Trump jumped in to contend that Biden’s position means that “he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth because some states, Democrat-run, take it after birth.”
“He’s willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby,” Trump declared. “Nobody wants that to happen, Democrat or Republican. Nobody wants it to happen.”
Biden pushed back: “You’re lying. That is simply not true. The Roe v. Wade does not provide for that. That’s not the circumstance.”
“We are not for late-term abortion. Period, period, period,” Biden maintained. Trump disagreed, stating that “under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion.”
Trump added, “You can do whatever you want. Depending on the state, you can do whatever you want. We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans.”
The discussion about abortion policy concluded with Biden expressing concern that Trump would pass a “universal ban on abortion” if he won the election and Republicans gained control of Congress.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
