Governor of Virginia Where He Stated He Would Execute a Baby After Birth.
Trump Sees an Opening With Voters on Belatedly-Term Abortion
The president lamented bills that would allow "a baby to exist ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth" in his Land of the Wedlock address.
President Donald Trump condemned ballgame in stark, graphic language in the State of the Union accost on Tuesday night, eager to join in the backlash over recent Autonomous legislation expanding access to tardily-term abortions.
Referring to a New York constabulary passed last calendar month, Trump slammed lawmakers who "cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would let a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth." He called recent state-level proposals on abortion "chilling," and used explicitly religious language to call for "a civilization that cherishes innocent life": "Let us reaffirm a primal truth," he said. "All children—born and unborn—are made in the holy prototype of God."
Trump and other Republicans are using divisions over late-term ballgame to their political advantage. They accept seized on the Democratic legislation to argue that Democrats are farthermost and out of bear upon with American public opinion on this issue. Trump's comments on ballgame in the Country of the Marriage received loud applause from Republican members of Congress. Ultimately, this may signal how the party will approach abortion in the long windup to the 2020 election: by using farthermost cases as a powerful wedge issue.
This legislative term, Democrats in a number of statehouses accept proposed legislation to expand abortion admission. New York passed the Reproductive Wellness Act, which affirms every individual'southward "cardinal right … to have an abortion," gives licensed professionals other than doctors the correct to perform the procedures, and allows for abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy if it "is necessary to protect the patient's life or health."
Trump condemned Democrats on Tuesday for passing this beak. "These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the globe," he said.
Some other recent nib in Virginia would have eased restrictions on third-trimester pregnancies in cases of potential harm to a adult female'southward mental or physical health. When a Republican lawmaker asked the sponsor of the bill, Democratic Consul Kathy Tran, whether a woman could request an abortion as she was dilating and about to give nativity, Tran cringed, and said yes. Meanwhile, Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, explained in a radio interview that, under this nib, "the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family unit desired, and then a word would ensue between the physicians and the mother."
A spokesperson for the governor after told Vox that the governor had "admittedly not" been referring to the euthanasia of a baby born after an unsuccessful ballgame. "The governor'southward comments focused on the tragic and extremely rare example in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor," the spokesperson said.
Despite this description, some critics, including Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, accused him of supporting infanticide. The pecker failed.
[Alexandra DeSanctis: Democrats overplay their hand on ballgame]
Trump condemned Northam in his State of the Union address. "We had the case of the governor of Virginia, where he stated he would execute a babe afterwards birth," the president said.
"I think [the Virginia legislation] shocked the conscience of a lot of people," said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America. "I think information technology's going to serve as a wake-upwardly telephone call for a lot of people who have been on the fence." Trump, who tweeted final calendar week that "Democrats are becoming the Political party of late term ballgame, high taxes, Open Borders, and Crime!," seems eager to use the backfire to Autonomous legislation to his advantage. "Republicans have a golden opportunity to make this a golden effect," said Charlie Camosy, an associate professor at Fordham Academy who studies the ethics of abortion.
Trump's focus on late-term abortions is strategic: It's i of the most fraught areas of ballgame policy, and public opinion about the procedure is mixed. While roughly two-thirds of Americans said in a Gallup poll this summer that they oppose overturning the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which established bones abortion rights, public stance varies on abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, depending on the reason for the procedure. Roughly 1 percent of abortions take place afterward 21 weeks, co-ordinate to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still these kinds of procedures have dominated recent policy fights at the state and federal level. "It's purposeful," said Melissa Murray, a law professor at NYU. Abortion opponents "know it will have a chilling effect on those who want to take a reasonable position that acknowledges women'due south right to command their reproductive chapters … No one talks about the fact that this is such a minor minority of cases."
[Read: Scientific discipline is giving the pro-life movement a heave]
Throughout his time in office, Trump has worked closely with anti-abortion groups to tailor his message. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of the influential activist group Susan B. Anthony Listing, met with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump'south interim chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, on Monday night, earlier the State of the Union. In his address, the president pledged to take upward one of the group's policy priorities, a federal limit on abortions at 20 weeks based on the claim that fetuses can experience pain at that stage in development. In January, Pence addressed the annual March for Life, while Trump shared a greeting past video. Activists within the anti-abortion movement take come up to run into Trump as a staunch ally: "He may go down every bit the well-nigh pro-life president we've e'er had in terms of what has really been accomplished during his administration," Hawkins said.
This tight relationship is partly congenital on Trump's professed opposition to late-term abortions. During the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, in his third contend against Hillary Clinton, Trump described the procedure as "[ripping] the babe out of the womb of the mother simply prior to the nascency." This seems to accept won him votes. "I'm no fan of Donald Trump, just pro-lifers rightly point out that he was willing to talk well-nigh it in pretty graphic language in the debates in 2016," Camosy said. "A sure kind of pro-lifer just rejoiced at Trump's statements." Identical language showed up once again in Trump'due south 2019 State of the Marriage address.
Democrats and Republicans akin are moving on abortion policies at the state level. In recent years, Republican-held legislatures around the land take enacted hundreds of restrictions on abortions. State-level Democratic legislators have begun pushing dorsum with efforts to expand abortion rights and access. "They see that this actually is the time to step up and exist aggressive and be proactive," said Dana Singiser, the senior vice president of policy, campaigns, and advocacy for Planned Parenthood. "We are non seeing a shrinking-abroad."
Following the high-profile debates in New York and Virginia, states including Rhode Island, Vermont, and New United mexican states will all consider proposals along these lines in the coming months. "That is the lesson of the 2018 ballot," Singiser said. "Elected officials have a mandate from women, from abortion-rights supporters more than broadly, from every consumer of health intendance … They're anxious to have access to more health intendance, non less."
[Read: The coming battle to overturn Roe v. Wade]
Even so Trump'due south Land of the Union showed that he has an opportunity on abortion too. "Information technology is red meat to [his] base of operations," Murray said. Some in the anti-abortion motility accept been skeptical of Trump and his policies. "I tin't tell you," Camosy said, "how many people accept dismissed what Republicans are doing at present past saying, 'Well, we might exist able to take you seriously if you had not been supporting kid separation at the border.'" Just in a political surround where belatedly-term abortions are up for debate, abortion is a winning upshot for this president. Whether they're fans of Trump or not, Murray said, for pro-life voters, "this is something he tin talk most that they tin get on board with."
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/trump-decries-late-term-abortions-state-union-address/582127/
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