PolitiFact.com, a nonprofit fact-checking website operated by the Poynter Institute, labeled as “misinformation” a Facebook post by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who had challenged comments made by ABC News’ Linsey Davis (above, right) and Vice President Kamala Harris during the recent presidential debate.
Facebook first labeled the post as containing “false information” and ultimately removed it. The issue was the available legal protection after a child survives an attempted abortion.
Donald Trump gave an impassioned commentary on “abortion in the ninth month” which was denied not only by Harris, his debate opponent, but first by the moderator, Davis.
Here’s what Trump said, though he confused the states. He’s referencing comments that were actually made by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in January 2019:
Trump: “They have abortion in the ninth month. You can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, who's doing an excellent job, but the governor before. He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we'll execute the baby.”
And about your running mate
Trump then took on Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“The Democrats are radical in that. And her vice-presidential pick, which I think was a horrible pick, by the way for our country, because he is really out of it. But her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth – it's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born – is okay. And that's not okay with me.”
When Trump finished, ABC moderator Davis shot back with a terse: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. Madam vice president, I want to get your response to President Trump.”
In response, Harris accused Trump of spreading “lies” and said that babies born alive but dying after botched abortions “is not happening.”
Perkins, a longtime champion of rights and protection for the unborn, called out Davis and Harris in his Facebook post:
“In 12 states, children born alive after a failed abortion have no legal protection, and in three more states children born alive after an abortion had legal rights that governors – like Tim Walz – repealed. Medical personnel have testified of babies being left to die or gruesomely killed after being born alive following a failed abortion,” he wrote.
“Most Democrats, including Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, have voted against providing medical care for these newborns.”
Perkins shared the screenshot of his Facebook post in an X post Thursday. He listed his source for the information FRC research, “Born Alive Abortion Survivors: Just the Facts,” a report released earlier this month.
Law is no good if not enforced
Mary Szoch, FRC’s director for the Center of Human Dignity, discussed the matter on Washington Watch Thursday.
“PolitiFact argues that federal law, including the Born Alive Protection Act of 2002 and state homicide and infanticide laws, would give protections to unborn babies who are born following or to babies who are born following an abortion, to newborns,” she noted.
But the fact-checkers, according to Szoch, stopped with the fact that laws have been enacted.
“What they ignore is the lack of enforcement requirements,” Szoch told Perkins, the show host. “The abortionist is not required to provide the same type of care to that newborn child that he would provide to any other baby born at a similar gestational age.”
The FRC center director said this leads to horrible delivery room scenes.
“Oftentimes that baby is left on a table to die as the result of the wounds that were inflicted because of the abortion. So, we do have instances of babies who are born alive following abortions being left to die,” said Szoch, who edited the FRC report.
There have been 277 reported cases in the U.S. of attempted aborted babies born alive.
Former Gov. Northam described the scenario in 2019 in a radio interview discussing proposed legislation that Virginia lawmakers ultimately did not pass.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. 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. Then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said.
Northam would understand what happens
“What we know is that Gov. Northam, who was a physician, knows that when you're in the room, there's a discussion taking place and that child's life hangs in the balance,” Szoch stated.
PolitiFact’s checkers described such cases as “vanishingly rare.” Szoch contends that’s because most cases simply are not reported.
“I have serious doubts that suddenly the number of actual babies who are being born alive after an abortion has just considerably gone down,” she said.
