Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden fought over the issue of abortion during Thursday night’s debate, with Trump taking a moderate approach while Biden advocated for radical anti-life policies.
Trump made clear that he agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the abortion pill and promised that he “will not block it.” Trump bragged that “I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states.”
Trump argued that when you leave the issue to the states, it often ends up with more liberal results than some would imagine, pointing to Kansas’s and Ohio’s abortion laws. He believes that states are more responsive to “the vote of the people” and where abortion law should lie.
Trump also invoked President Ronald Reagan and made clear that he supports exceptions for “rape, incest, and the life of the mother.” Furthermore, he said that conservatives “have to get elected,” implying that consistent pro-life policy is not electorally wise.
He then attacked “radical” Democrats “because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, ninth month, and even after birth,” specifically mentioning former Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s defense of infanticide.
Biden was then given the opportunity to respond when he argued that returning abortion laws to the states has “been a terrible thing.” He said that “the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe.” Biden then criticized six-week heartbeat laws and said that overturning Roe is akin to returning “Civil Rights back to the states.”
Biden claimed, “There’s a lot of young women to be raped by their in-laws, by their spouses,” and “their brothers and sisters.” He also invoked the story of an illegal immigrant murdering a young woman, but it is unclear what point he was trying to make.
In a rebuttal, Trump argued that the founding fathers would have wanted abortion to be up to the states “if they knew about the issue, which frankly, they didn’t.” Trump again invoked Reagan, arguing that the late president did not want abortion to be a federal issue.
Biden was asked if he supported any restrictions on abortion, but he promised to “restore Roe v. Wade.” He also argued that the founders would not have wanted politicians “making decisions about women’s health.”
Trump said that Biden is willing to “rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby.” Biden said he was “not for late-term abortion, period,” despite again emphasizing support for Roe, which did allow states to have late-term abortion. Biden is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, which has consistently condemned abortion.
Trump said, “The Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans,” which is completely true. The majority of Americans do not support extreme laws that allow abortion until birth, and only one-third think abortion should be allowed under any circumstances. It is extreme to support the murder of babies in every case, but it is particularly brutal to support their killing well after viability. That is Joe Biden’s vision for America.
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Trump’s moderate position is probably the right decision to get Republicans elected in 2024, but it cannot be the position of the GOP forever. The Democratic Party has made clear that it intends to codify Roe on the federal level, restoring the nightmarish abortion laws that were in effect before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The GOP needs to ensure that, at the very least, late-term abortions are banned at the federal level.
The GOP still needs to stand for life. While Trump’s position may not be perfect, it is far better than the indefensible stance taken by Biden.
