Win McNamee/Getty Images

CNN —

At Tuesday night’s presidential debate, when former President Donald Trump was asked about his stance on abortion access, he offered a now-familiar explanation for his support for gestational abortion limits early in pregnancy and for overturning Roe v. Wade: the idea that, otherwise, after-birth execution of newborns would be allowed.

“You can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia,” Trump said. “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.’ ”

video

Trump was asked why women should support him on abortion. See his response

Linsey Davis of ABC News, one of the debate’s moderators, responded with a fact check: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”

So where did Trump’s claim about executing newborn babies — one he also made in CNN’s June 27 debate against President Joe Biden — come from?

It appears to stem from comments made by former Virginia (not West Virginia) Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat and pediatric neurologist, in an interview with Washington, DC, radio station WTOP in 2019.

Northam was asked about a proposed bill that would eliminate certain requirements around access to abortion in the second and third trimesters, and specifically about comments from the bill’s sponsor acknowledging that it would allow abortions up until just before birth.

Northam noted that abortions in the...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMigAFBVV95cUxNbzJnNGNETU5jMkJGZzhPbG5S...