NC congressman spreads outlandish abortion lie. Here are the facts | Opinion
Former President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he will not support a national abortion limit hasn’t stopped some Republicans from spreading outlandish claims and making abortion a major political issue.
In an appearance on Fox Business on Tuesday, North Carolina congressman Greg Murphy was asked about Trump’s comments and whether he thought abortion would be a big issue in the 2024 election.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a big issue every time because you have folks, really on both sides, really probably more Democrat, that wants abortion literally when the child is coming out of the birth canal,” Murphy said.
Trump made similar claims in a recent video posted to social media, saying that Democrats “support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months, and even execution after birth.”
Abortion when the child is coming out of the birth canal, or after birth? Really?
Murphy is a co-chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, a group of health care providers serving in Congress. So, as a doctor, Murphy ought to know that his claim is both wildly false and medically inaccurate.
For starters, “coming out of the birth canal” is a very strange way to describe the process known as birth, and killing a baby during or after birth is already explicitly illegal. Murphy ought to know that “abortion” during or after birth does not happen, because killing a newborn child would be infanticide, which is illegal in all 50 states. Under federal law, the definitions of a person, human being, child and individual all include infants “born alive at any stage of development,” according to a recent fact-check from PolitiFact.
Less than 1% of all abortions happen at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even fewer of those happen after viability, which is around 23 or 24 weeks. When they do happen, it is only in rare, heartbreaking emergencies such as fetal anomalies or an immediate threat to the life of the mother. Someone cannot decide to have an abortion in the third trimester simply because they do not want a baby, nor can they choose to abort the baby during or after delivery.
Murphy may also have been referring to “partial-birth abortions,” a non-medical term for a procedure once used later in pregnancy. Even if that’s the case, it would still be extremely misleading — that procedure has not been legal in the U.S. for more than a decade.
There’s also no evidence to suggest that Democrats actually support abortion during or after birth. Most Democratic-backed legislation would restore the protections of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which were the law of the land up until 2022. Importantly, Roe and Casey only permitted abortions up to the point of fetal viability, except in rare, life-threatening medical emergencies. Trump has falsely claimed that Roe allowed doctors to terminate pregnancies after birth.
Murphy also told Fox that he believes abortion is the “most emotionally charged issue, I believe, that we deal with.” He’s not wrong about that, because it is a deeply personal matter that intimately affects people’s bodies and their lives. However, intentionally inflammatory remarks like Murphy’s fuel these political tensions rather than diffusing them. Spreading half-truths and lies, rather than leading with the facts, vilifies those who have abortions as well as the doctors who perform them.
This story was originally published April 10, 2024 at 12:08 PM with the headline "NC congressman spreads outlandish abortion lie. Here are the facts | Opinion."
