In his Meet the Press interview yesterday, Donald Trump had an exchange about abortion with the show's new anchor, Kristen Welker. His responses are drawing fire from all sides, including from pro-lifers, many of whom are up in arms over his denunciation of 'heartbeat' abortion restrictions that have been passed in a number of states. The back-and-forth on that topic was fairly lengthy, spanning nearly ten minutes, starting around the 24:00 mark of the video. Watch it here:
Welker repeatedly tried to pin Trump down, and he just refused to commit to certain positions, instead arguing that as president, he'd facilitate a negotiated settlement that would satisfy both sides, and put the issue behind us. Even though that hazy, unspecified 'solution' strikes me as profoundly naive, I have mixed feelings about Trump's responses overall. His instinct to underscore Democrats' radicalism is a good one -- and it happens to be true, despite the water-carrying interference Welker ran on their behalf. We'll explore this point in depth below. It's also probably strategically smart to remain strategically vague on certain points, and to emphasize areas of broad agreement, as Nikki Haley aptly did at last month's GOP debate. Some of Trump's evasions were ham-handed, perhaps because he doesn't know what he actually supports. He also relied too heavily on the post-birth infanticide point, which we'll also address. The worst element of Trump's abortion answers, by far, was this one:
Trump says DeSantis limiting abortions to 6-weeks was a “terrible thing”pic.twitter.com/HKSDRqZoCg
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) September 17, 2023
In a post-Roe world, it's galling and hugely demoralizing to see the runaway Republican frontrunner openly attack major pro-life achievements advanced in states like Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and elsewhere (in all of the states mentioned, the pro-life governors who signed those laws were re-elected by record margins). He slammed 'heartbeat' laws as a "terrible thing" as a means of attacking Ron DeSantis, but what he's actually doing in that framing is striking at the very heart of the pro-life movement. If issues mattered at all in this primary election process, this would be a big problem for Trump. I'm skeptical that it will move the needle at all, however, because nothing seems to move the needle.
What I'd like to primarily focus on, though, is the biased performance of Welker on this issue, who presented her questions from the pro-abortion-rights perspective shared by nearly all journalists. She opened the abortion-related questioning by citing women who say their lives are at risk because of abortion bans, so it's worth noting that virtually every pro-life abortion limitation that has been proposed or passed includes an explicit exception to save the life of a mother. Welker objected to Trump's characterization of Democrats' views on the subject throughout the exchange, but she framed the pro-life position in the most extreme and uncharitable way possible. In doing so, she sounded indistinguishable an abortion advocate. Is she comfortable serving as one? Whenever Trump raised Democrats' radicalism on the issue, Welker played defense, asserting that Democrats don't hold the extreme position that they do, in fact, hold:
TRUMP: So you have Roe v. Wade, for 52 years, people including Democrats wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right. Roe v. Wade — I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated, was put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all, because the radical people on this are really the Democrats that say, after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth you’re allowed to terminate the baby —
WELKER: Mr. President, Democrats aren’t saying that. I just have to, Democrats are not saying that.
TRUMP: Of course they do —
WELKER: That’s not true.
TRUMP: You have a Virginia governor, previous governor, who said, “After the baby is born, you will make a determination, and if you want, you will kill that baby.” The baby is now born.
WELKER: But Mr. President, Democrats writ large are not talking about that. Only 1% of late-term abortions happen, and always in the state of crisis...
I'll concede that Trump was significantly exaggerating the infanticide point in his answers, although it's not completely baseless. The Ralph Northam comments he referenced really did happen, despite the intensive media spin on his behalf, and a certain Illinois State Senator named Barack Obama voted against bills designed to require life-saving treatments be administered to born-alive infants who survived failed abortions (a whistleblower nurse had testified that these humans were being discarded in linen closets and left to die). The pro-abortion absolutism among Democrat Party elites is unconscionable, and has at times blurred even the brightest moral and ethical line of birth. As for the similarly-heinous matter of late-term abortion, Welker repeated a version of the line above on several additional occasions, claiming that "no one is arguing for" legal, late-term abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. "That’s not a part of anyone’s argument," she said.
She's wrong. That is, quite literally, the Democrat Party's current position on abortion, as evidenced by actual votes and legislation. Only a tiny handful of federally-elected Democrats are willing to name any cut-off for elective abortions, at any stage of pregnancy. Multiple states have enacted laws legalizing unlimited abortion-on-demand, for all nine months, paid for by taxpayers. This is a wildly unpopular stance that is profoundly removed from the American and global mainstream, which is why Democrats embrace it while insisting that "nobody" supports their own position. They gaslight and deny, aided by media allies like Welker. Even in progressive, secular Western Europe, most countries impose dramatic restrictions on elective abortions after the first trimester. A 12-week or 15-week ban, with very limited exceptions, would be smack in the middle of global norms -- and broadly acceptable within the realm of US public opinion, based on numerous polls.
Welker also deploys the talking point that only a small number of abortions happen after 21 weeks (why she chose that particular demarcation point is unclear). Some perspective:
It’s disturbing that journalists keep using this dishonest framing. 1.3% of abortions is 10-12K babies each year.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 24, 2023
That’s similar to the number of gun homicides each year. Over 100X number of mass shooting deaths. No one in the press would diminish those issues in the same way. https://t.co/BkPnURGrdG
Not only don't journalists diminish those gun deaths, they highlight and hype them whenever the news cycle and political moment permits. They're eager to do so, in service of another progressive agenda item they almost universally support. If a Republican waved away thousands of deaths per year as "only a small percentage," or whatever, they'd be excoriated as callous. Monstrous, even. But it's an official Democrat/media talking point that thousands of other deaths don't matter or don't count. That is the callous, monstrous position they feel compelled to deny holding. Congressional Democrats' Biden-endorsed 'codify Roe v. Wade' legislation from last year proves it. Their bill didn't codify Roe; it went much further. Indeed, Democratic leadership killed a bill that would have simply codified Roe.
Their horrific version established a legal right to abortion through all nine months, in all 50 states. It invalidated nearly every abortion restriction on the books, including common-sense limitations supported by super-majorities of Americans, including among Democrats and self-identified pro-choice voters (parental consent laws for minors, 24-hour waiting periods, barring sex-selective abortions, etc). It gutted religious liberty safeguards for medical professionals who don't want to participate in abortions. It even allowed non-doctors to perform abortions, even past the point of viability. It opened the floodgates for taxpayer funding of elective abortions. It was so extreme that even long-standing pro-choice Republicans flatly rejected it. But that legislation was co-sponsored by nearly every Senate Democrat. In the House, Democrats voted to pass it 218-1, with all 210 Republicans in opposition. In short, roughly 99 percent of Democrats on Capitol Hill voted in favor of the grotesque pro-abortion stance that they claim is a Republican-invented fiction. But these are their votes, on their legislation. Welker and her colleagues in the press should not repeat these lies as facts, unless misleading the public, ignoring the record, and engaging in activism is their goal -- which, in many cases, it is.
Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that Welker truly believes the current Democratic spin, which she regurgitated several times during her sit-down with Trump. Let's also, for the sake of argument, pretend that Democrats' 2022 votes never happened. Is there some other way to test the proposition that "nobody" would support late-term abortions? There is. In 2017 and 2018, Republicans introduced federal legislation that barred nearly all abortions after the 20-week mark. It made exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Twenty weeks is around the beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy. It's roughly when science teaches us that unborn babies can start to feel pain in the womb, and when babies can survive a premature birth. If implemented, the bill would still have been more permissive than the laws in place in most other countries. Yet a grand total of six Democrats in Congress at the time, three in each chamber, voted to support this proposal. The rest of the party unanimously voted it down. The current Vice President perversely called it "immoral."
If Welker is correct that Democrats don't support late-term abortion, why did approximately 98 percent of them vote against a 20-week ban (with exceptions) during the last presidency? And why did 99 percent of them vote for a bill that would have expanded "abortion access" throughout all nine months, well beyond the Roe precedent? They did so because that's their position, no matter what they say. Even rhetorically, nearly all of them also refuse to name a single abortion limitation they'd be willing to support. Again, this is an appalling and profoundly unpopular position, which is why they lie and pretend it's not theirs. But it is. To ignore all of this is to engage in propaganda and dishonest advocacy.