Republican nominee Donald Trump, the former president, pressed Harris on her support for abortion until birth in the debate. ABC's Davis shifted quickly from the role of moderator to abortion activist. In one continuous response she told Trump, “There is no state in this country where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” then asked Harris to weigh in.
Harris quickly turned to her talking point of “lies” from Trump.
“Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies – and as you rightly mentioned,” Harris said, responding to the moderator, “nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening, and it’s insulting to the women of America.”
Davis may have presented a distinction without a difference. A child “after it’s born” was a child in the birth canal seconds before. Data from the Family Research Council shows that 21 states allow abortion until birth and that 15 states have no laws that protect babies born alive after a failed abortion.
“I can speak on behalf of our network of survivors to say it’s insulting to be told that this doesn’t happen … like we don’t exist,” Melissa Ohden, founder and director of The Abortion Survivors Network, said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
The numbers of children born alive are difficult to ascertain because states aren’t required to report these occurrences.
“In the 10 states we’re looking at we see about 270 reported cases. And I want to be clear about something: the other side loves to say that this ‘doesn’t happen, and that’s why we don’t even report it anymore,’” Ohden, herself an abortion survivor, told show host Tony Perkins.
FRC research puts the number of known abortion survivor infants at 277, a figure that is believed to be higher because only eight states are required to report the births.
The federal Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, passed in 2002, recognizes babies born alive as full persons under the law, but there is not currently a federal law ensuring these infants are given proper medical care.
Northam’s take and the Trump translation
On Tuesday, in addressing the question of abortion at birth, Trump referenced the views of former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Northam, in a 2019 radio interview, was asked to respond to proposed legislation in his state that would allow for abortion after the birth of a child in extreme circumstances. Northam supported the legislation, but it was never passed, according to reporting at Snopes.com.
Trump has used the word “execute” to describe what could happen to babies born under the legislation once proposed in Virginia. Often, the time restraints of high-profile interview settings do not allow fully explained answers. Use of certain volatile words – like, in this instance, execute – leaves pro-abortion voices opportunities to create doubt.
“When people look at the overlay of what abortion laws are and where states have repealed abortion protections – New York, Illinois, Minnesota – folks can clearly see this is not an anomaly. We know what the playbook of the abortion industry and lobby is – unregulated, unrestricted abortion and stripping born-alive reporting and rights,” Ohden said.
The pro-abortion crowd is eager to muddy the waters, Ohden argued.
“They know exactly what they’re doing. They know that unrestricted abortion leads to live births after abortion. They simply don’t want to report it, and they don’t want to acknowledge that there are poor children who are not being provided medical care,” she said.
Responses such as those from Davis – then Harris’ accusation of Trump lying – are designed to make the subject matter appear so outrageous that data will not be reported, Ohden said.
The late “Dr. Willard Cates of the CDC said decades ago that these [abortion survivors] go underreported because we know the public clamor that would happen if the public knew how often this was happening,” Ohden said.
Study: Survival rates higher than you might think
The Abortion Survivors Network is sorting through reports from other countries with stronger available records.
A European study in 2018 studied 241 cases and found that survival after an attempt to terminate the pregnancy occurred in more than half. The median survival time was 32 minutes.
“There are clear research studies looking at second-trimester abortions and what they want to do to prevent live births from it," said Ohden. “So, they’re talking about feticide, injecting dioxygen … and they were comparing and contrasting what the live births looked like and how they delivered that shot. ABC needs to take a look at this [study]and maybe school themselves.”
