Trump is back with one of his wildest lies about abortion

Former President Donald Trump revived one of his most blatant lies about abortion during a television interview Sunday, repeatedly claiming, easily refuted, that several states allow doctors to “kill the baby after the birth “.

The former president and 2024 Republican front-runner made the statements during a pre-recorded interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Trump insisted this was true eight times throughout the interview, despite repeated corrections from moderator Kristen Welker.

“Some states are allowed to kill the child after birth, but you cannot allow that,” Trump insisted.

“Look, the Democrats are capable of killing the baby after birth,” he doubled down.

“Even after birth, you have the right to terminate the baby,” he said.

All of these claims are categorically false. It is not legal in any state to voluntarily end the life of a newborn.

“Anti-abortion politicians who make these outrageous and false claims are advancing a political agenda at the expense of real patients and people who are harmed by the abortion ban,” said Kelly Baden, Vice President political president of the Guttmacher Institute, in a press release. at HuffPost.

It is essential, she continued, to “counter anti-abortion rhetoric that has no basis in evidence, facts or medical standards of care and which only serves to endanger abortion providers and patients.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is also unequivocal in its statements that no doctor would perform what Republicans like to call “post-birth abortion.”

“No such procedure exists,” ACOG states on its website, noting that such claims “are intended to demonize not only the procedure but also the people who provide and receive it.”

Some of Trump’s lies about abortion on Sunday were even very specific. He claimed that New York State had “passed a law allowing the killing of the baby after birth” and that a former governor of Virginia had advocated for infanticide.

New York has never passed such legislation, and Trump’s claims that it does appear to be taken directly from a social media hoax last year that circulated in right-wing circles.

The former Virginia governor Trump was referring to was likely Ralph Northam (Democrat), who said in 2019 that if a mother delivers a non-viable fetus, “the baby would remain comfortable” and the parents would have the option to make extreme attempts at resuscitation. Republicans have long misrepresented these comments, as Trump did in Sunday’s interview, and presented them as evidence that a Democrat supported infant euthanasia.

Trump has made similar comments on the campaign trail in recent years, prompting several fact-checks from the media. Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently made the same wild claim.

Among those outraged by Trump’s comments were Fred Guttenberga gun reform activist whose daughter Jaime was killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.

“Beyond this being a really stupid lie, here are some facts,” Guttenberg posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “My baby was killed after birth due to gun violence. Republicans, by blocking gun violence prevention, apparently support the killing of babies after birth.