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Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz spent 10 minutes debating abortion on Tuesday night in what is likely to be the only time the pair faces off in the 2024 race.
In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, abortion has overtaken the economy as the single most important issue for women younger than 45 in this year’s election, according to the New York Times.
And while Walz shared the devastating stories of women who have been impacted by bans in certain states, Vance appeared to try to re-write his stance with a number of false claims and misleading statements about abortion care.
During the debate, Vance falsely claimed that he “never supported a national abortion ban” but instead supported “some minimum national standard.”
However, in 2022 when he was running for the Senate, Vance told the Very Fine People podcast he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”
He also said he was “sympathetic” to the idea that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across different states for abortion care.
That same year, he also supported Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to impose a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
When he was asked during a 2022 debate whether he would support Graham’s bill, Vance said: “I think it’s totally reasonable to say you cannot abort a baby, especially for elective reasons, after 15 weeks of gestation.”
While his running mate was sparring with Walz on abortion rights, Donald Trump waded in with a running commentary live on Truth Social.
After refusing multiple times to say whether or not he would veto a federal abortion ban if it landed on his desk during a potential second term, Trump claimed on Tuesday night: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (The will of the people!).”
During the September 10 debate against Kamala Harris, Trump refused to say whether he would veto a national ban. He said: “I’m not in favor of an abortion ban, but it doesn’t matter, because this issue has now been taken over by the states. I wouldn’t have to.”
Trump nominated three justices to the Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v Wade, which revoked a constitutional right to abortion care and effectively gave individual states the ability to legislate abortion care. Trump and Vance have repeatedly agreed that states, not the federal government, should make those decisions.
On Tuesday night, Vance — as he praised the rights of states to make their own decisions on abortion — falsely claimed Walz signed a statute into law in Minnesota meaning that “the doctor is under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.”
This is also incorrect.
In January 2023, Walz actually signed into law a bill that states: “Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health” and “every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth, or obtain an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise this fundamental right.”
The Ohio senator distorted Walz’s repeal of a “born alive” measure that has been in effect in Minnesota since the 1970s and offered a misleading picture of what can happen during often heartbreaking medical decisions with complicated pregnancies.
Previously, doctors were required by law to report when a “live child” was “born as the result of an abortion,” and to provide “all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” to care for that child. But, doctors argued, there are already laws requiring physicians to care for any person.
Physicians argued the law took the decision away from families often in very difficult and heartbreaking situations, forcing them to do invasive procedures when the child was not expected to survive. Anti-abortionists have falsely interpreted the 2023 language to mean infants who survive abortions can be denied medical care by a doctor.
In the five years since Walz has been state governor, there have been eight recorded instances of infants who were “born alive,” according to the state’s health department. Three were unable to survive outside the uterus, two had fetal anomalies and died shortly after birth, and three were provided “comfort care as planned” — effectively a kind of hospice care for infants who were not expected to survive — and died shortly after.
Both candidates used the debate to share personal stories of women who have experienced life-threatening and complicated pregnancies in states with abortion bans. Walz mentioned the tragic case of 28-year-old Amber Thurman, who died after her medical care was delayed following Georgia’s ban on abortions after six weeks.
“No woman should have to drive 600 miles to try to get healthcare,” Walz said, referring to Thurman. She had obtained abortion medication from a clinic in North Carolina, but when the abortion failed to complete she was unable to have a procedure in her home state to treat an infection that killed her.
Vance did agree with his opponent on one thing: “Amber Thurman should still be alive.”
He also shared the story of an unnamed friend, saying that if she hadn’t gone through with an abortion, it “would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.”
While the point of his story was unclear, the Republican conceded his party needs to do a “better job” on reproductive rights.
“My party — we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do.”
