STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Beto O’Rourke has refused to rule out abortions more than six months into a pregnancy.
Asked by the Washington Examiner about his stance on third trimester abortion, O’Rourke, battling with a crowded field of Democrats vying for the chance to unseat President Trump in 2020, said it was a woman’s decision, in consultation with her doctor.
“Listen, I think those decisions are best left to a woman and her doctor,” he said. “I know better than to assume anything about a woman’s decision, an incredibly difficult decision, when it comes to her reproductive rights.”
Young women from the college Democrats walking with him toward his speech at Hetzel Union Building student center cheered his response.
“Roe v. Wade, though it is being tested unlike any other time, it still the law of the land. It must be upheld, and we must ensure that when were are talking about universal healthcare we are also talking about women’s healthcare. And when we are talking about women’s healthcare we are talking about women making their own decisions about their own body.”
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O’Rourke was being asked to clarify comments he made in Cleveland the night before in response to a woman asking him whether he supported third-trimester abortions. The woman noted that in those cases the fetus might be viable outside of the womb, and if there were an emergency, doctors could perform a cesarean section.
He answered the woman’s question quickly, not addressing the root of the inquiry but simply saying that he supported a woman’s right to an abortion.
He told her: “So, the question is about abortion and reproductive rights. And my answer to you is that that should be a decision that the woman makes about her body. I trust her.”
While 6 in 10 Americans broadly support abortion rights in their first trimester, the latest Gallup polling from last June said that number drops to 13 percent in the final three months of a pregnancy.
O’Rourke, 46, a former Texas congressman who announced his presidential run last Thursday, said it was important to visit Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio right out of the gate, an implicit criticism of defeated 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton who neglected the Rust Belt and lost all four states.
“The places that I visited are really important to me. I want to make sure that we are not writing anyone off, and just as importantly, I want to make sure we are not taking anyone for granted,” he said.
“When we don’t show up, we get what we deserve. When we don’t show up, we fail to learn from those we fail to serve.”
Clinton was widely panned for ignoring Wisconsin and Michigan until the end of the campaign.
“If we have any hope of winning and if we have any prospect of delivering, we have to first show up with the humility of acknowledging that,” O’Rourke said in an interview with the Examiner as he walked along Pollock Road with 20 members of the Penn State University Democrats.
O’Rourke spent a half-hour with the student activists at the Nittany Lion statue taking questions about college tuition and taking photos with the group.
Donning a white Penn State hat, Beto even learned the finer details of the iconic “We Are” “Penn State” that typically echoes out of Beaver Stadium during football season.
O’Rourke served six years in the House representing El Paso, Texas, before challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 for his senate seat. Despite the long odds — the last Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in Texas was Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 when he won re-election to a fourth term — the 46-year-old made it a race, coming within 2.5 percentage points of Cruz.
Of the candidates who have announced or are considering a run, O’Rourke is the youngest. On Sunday, he announced his campaign brought in $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign outraising everyone in the field, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who hit $6 million in his first 24 hours.
He broke the fundraising record books last year in Texas, raising over $80 million, more than twice as much as Cruz did.
Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based Republican media consultant, said O’Rourke was less quixotic than his Democratic critics claim and his Republican rivals wish he was. Gerow said, “Look, he is charismatic in a presidential field vying to show their presidential timber.”
O’Rourke was smart to bookend Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania between the traditional early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Gerow said. “The Rust Belt is going to determine who the next president is and this is ground zero. Right now he is the talk of the town and he has pushed the other Democrats off the front page.”
But he added that the only candidate ever to knock everyone off the front pages and stay there for four years had been Trump: “Whether O’Rourke can go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump is another story.”
