Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke supports late-term abortion.
He just doesn’t want to say it in so many words.
The 2020 Democratic hopeful dodged a question this week about whether he supports abortions performed during the third trimester, the point at which unborn children are generally viable and can be delivered alive and survive, responding instead with some generic pablum about “reproductive rights.”
An audience member asked O’Rourke Monday at a campaign event in Cleveland, “Are you for third-trimester abortions or are you going to protect the lives of third-trimester babies? … Are you for or against third-trimester abortions?”
The 2020 presidential candidate opted to wiggle out of the question.
“So, the question is about abortion and reproductive rights,” he began. Actually, it wasn’t. It was a specific question about abortions during the last 12 weeks of pregnancy.
O’Rourke continued, “And my answer to you is that that should be a decision that the woman makes.”
The crowd loved it. They awarded the former congressman’s generic dodge with cheers and claps. He rewarded their applause by reiterating his very generic response: “I trust her.”
Here’s Beto O’Rourke at a campaign event in Cleveland responding to a question about third-trimester abortions: “That should be a decision that the woman makes. I trust her.” pic.twitter.com/nBrlazlMob
— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) March 18, 2019
The question was about abortion after fetal viability, National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis stresses. Notice how O’Rourke simply took the audience member’s question, ignored it, and turned it into some generic and nonsensical mantra about “abortion and reproductive rights” and trusting women.
“That’s what they have to do to defend third-trimester abortion,” DeSanctis adds.
Only 13 percent of U.S. adults think it should be legal to perform an abortion in the third trimester, according to 2018 Gallup data.
O’Rourke’s evasive answer aside, he co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, which seeks to make unlawful all state laws prohibiting “abortion after fetal viability when, in the good faith medical judgment of the treating physician, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant woman’s life or health.” In 2017, he also voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have banned abortions after 20 weeks. The bill never made it out of the House.
If there’s any doubt, then, O’Rourke does indeed support late-term abortions.
