Trump's Fetish about Abortion at Term

And why the media is unfit to ask about abortion in a debate

Anamarija Mrkic/Getty Images

I have some thoughts about the abortion questions and answers at the CNN-hosted presidential debate from Thursday night (June 27). This spectacle proved that the media, or at least the ones given access to the candidates, are unfit to question Trump about anything. To them, Trump is a gaudy bauble that feeds the 24/7 outrage and fear-hungry news cycle like no other. As much as it pains me to quote Michelle Wolf (if you want to know why, read this piece), she was correct when she said this back in 2018 at the White House Correspondents Dinner about the media:

You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn't sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric, but he has helped you.

He's helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're profiting off of him. 

The debate also proved the media have no business asking about abortion because they are either ignorant or are just playing for clicks—or both.

The first question about abortion was from Dana Bash for Trump, and it established that he was responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. Good, he took credit. The follow-up question should have been something that pushed him about the consequences. For example, I would have asked:

As you take credit for overturning Roe, I’d like to know what you would say to a woman who is 12 weeks pregnant and lives in Texas and can’t get chemotherapy for her newly diagnosed breast cancer because it could harm her fetus. Under Roe, she could have had an abortion and started therapy or had chemotherapy while pregnant. Now, her cancer is progressing because you overturned Roe. What do you say to this woman and her family?

Bash could have also asked about rising maternal mortality in the states where abortion is illegal or severely restricted or about women being forced to leave states to get abortions to save their lives and what happens to those who can’t leave. She could have mentioned how overturning Roe has increased poverty. Instead, she went straight to medication abortion. It’s not that access to medication abortion isn’t important, but I think the electorate deserves to hear Trump speak about his abortion legacy instead of what we heard, which amounted to, “Yes, I overturned Roe. What of it?”

Trump babbled about medication abortion and the states, making little sense. And then said this:

The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth – after birth.

If you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do this. He said, we’ll put the baby aside and we’ll determine what we do with the baby. Meaning, we’ll kill the baby.

Knowing about the debate more than a day in advance (read with heavy sarcasm font), Jake Tapper and Dana Bash had plenty of time to prepare follow-up questions should either candidate say something that was fucking off the rails. While the agreed-upon rules were no fact-checking from the moderators, I’d like to think that if a candidate said something like, “If I’m elected, we will let the aliens out of Area 51,” a moderator might pause and say, “I’d like to just follow this line for a moment, Mr. Trump. Where are these aliens from, and what do they look like?” To mention abortion after birth as if it’s a thing is like saying ET is moving in next door. 

These two lies: abortion at eight or nine months and after birth are in heavy rotation in Trump’s playlist. As his playlist is incredibly shallow, being unprepared for this is absurd and insulting to voters.

For those who don’t know, Trump is twisting the words of former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who, in a 2019 interview, was explaining palliative care for newborns who were not going to be resuscitated after birth because of severe birth defects or because they were extremely premature. Dr. Northam is a pediatric neurologist, so he understands the subject a *little* more than Trump. This is the care my son Aidan received. It’s awful to know your baby is going to die on their birthday. It’s worse to see it twisted by Christian fascists to make the population believe women are somehow both crafty killers and yet too silly to have an abortion earlier in the pregnancy when it is cheaper and easier. This abortion after-delivery lie also makes it pretty clear that, among other dystopian things, if Trump were elected, the laws would undoubtedly change so a baby born with a lethal anomaly or pre-viability could be forcibly resuscitated. If the doctors don’t, they could credibly be accused of murder. 

Instead of asking Trump to clarify *how* abortions might happen after delivery or how many women actually have abortions at 39 or 40 weeks and where he gets those numbers, Bash turns to Biden. Here was an opportunity for Biden to mop the floor with Trump. Instead, Biden’s response was forgettable and muddled. I don’t understand how he wasn’t prepped to say something like this: 

Mr. Trump. Women are dying because of your gleeful overturn of Roe—something you just said was a “great thing.” Maternal deaths have risen in states where abortion is illegal or highly restricted. If a woman is critically ill and needs an abortion, she must somehow make it to another state or accept her fate. If there is a national abortion ban, something that you have previously been on record of supporting, maternal mortality could rise by 24%. Your legacy is killing women. Now, let’s talk about your lies. There is no such thing as an after-birth abortion. You are perverting palliative care for newborns with lethal anomalies. You have turned the worst day of someone’s life into a fascist fantasy. It’s disgusting, even for you.

(Biden debate prep team, please, call me in coach). 

Then Trump blathered on some more. Biden wanted to reply, and so Bash said she was going to give him another question on the same topic, so she rolled out this doozy:

Seven states have no legal restrictions on how far into a pregnancy a woman can obtain an abortion. Do you support any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy?

WHAT IN THE EVER-LOVING FUCK DANA BASH? 

Trump said he is against abortion at eight or nine months and acted as if that happens on the regular. Instead of stopping and forcing Trump to explain, as I hope would happen if he had said ET was coming for dinner, by asking Biden his opinion on how late an abortion should be legally allowed, Bash has implied to those watching that Trump’s concerns about abortions are valid. Whether Bash knows it or not, she was JAQing off, meaning “just asking questions,” which is a way to influence people by asking leading questions and then hiding behind the supposed search for the “truth.” A debate moderator should have a better question about abortion than one that is a Trojan horse for the concept of “good” and “bad” abortions.

It then led to back and forth between the candidates, where Biden tried to explain that politicians shouldn’t be making these decisions (and for what it’s worth, his replies look better on the transcript than they sounded), and Trump just kept countering with ninth-month womb-ripping.

Just shoot me into the sun to ease my pain. 

I hate defining what grifters leave vague because they do it on purpose. When Trump melds abortions at eight months, nine months, and after birth into one thing, he is implying they are all infanticide. The more vague he is, the better. But since Biden, in his reply, brought up the third trimester, and many people are asked their opinion about abortion based on pregnancy trimesters, I want to dig into the statistics about abortion ≥ 27-28 weeks because it covers Trump’s ridiculous claims and because it is so rare it’s not only not worth a question at the debate, it’s not worth a policy decision.  

The CDC doesn’t have the precise number of abortions in the United States because only 47 states report their statistics, and not all that do include gestational age. The CDC reports about 0.9% of abortions happen ≥ 21 weeks. This is about the same as in Canada and in the UK, so it’s pretty clear the rate of abortion at or after 21 weeks is not the result of American laws, but rather is what is needed in pregnancy. If barriers were reduced (and they vary country to country), the rate would likely be lower, but not zero.

The best data on abortions in the United States is from the Guttmacher Institute; they estimate there were 1,037,000 abortions in 2023, which means about 10,370 abortions happen ≥ 21 weeks/year (we’re using a 1% rate for simplicity). We can’t use 10,370, as the abortion rate drops significantly each week after 21 weeks. We can’t get the national numbers for ≥ 27-28 weeks directly, but we can get an estimate using indirect methods. There is a study from 1998 that evaluated abortion rates in the United States at or after 21 weeks, and the authors estimated:

• 0.4% of abortions happen at or after 23 weeks 

• 0.08% of abortions happen at or after 25 weeks 

• 0.02% of abortions happen at or after 27 weeks 

Recent UK estimates that 0.1% of abortions happen ≥ 24 weeks, which fits with the data above. This means it is reasonable to conclude that 1,037 abortions happen each year in the United States ≥ 24 weeks, which is often considered the point of viability. Looking ≥ 27 weeks, that number drops to 207. I found some information on a forced birth website that filed a request to get gestational age data from Colorado, one of the states where abortions happen at all gestational ages, and it suggests my estimate is likely in the ballpark (I am certainly not going to link to that dumpster fire of misogyny). 

No one has looked explicitly at who has abortions after 27 weeks, but having an abortion at or after 24 weeks is based on factors like delays in getting abortion care (due to laws, costs, and travel), acquiring new information later in their pregnancy about fetal malformations, or people not realizing they were pregnant until later in the pregnancy. In one study that asked women about the reasons for their ≥ 24 week abortions, the abortions ranged from 24-35 weeks, but there was no breakdown by gestational age by reason. In general, the further along in gestational age, the more likely the abortion is for fetal anomalies. Sometimes all the information about the pregnancy isn’t available until 28 or 29 weeks, and sometimes even later. Maternal health indications, so-called “life of the mother” scenarios, just don’t happen past viability, because people who are critically ill and who have a viable fetus are simply delivered by c-section or by an induced vaginal delivery. However, given the negative emotional impact of being pregnant when you don't want to be and the maternal mortality in the United States, it’s easy to make a case for any abortion being about health. 

I don’t need to explain why an “after birth abortion” isn’t a thing, but let’s put this whole 8th of 9th month abortion to rest. Abortions at or after 24 weeks range from thousands of dollars to $25,000. The further along, the more expensive. In 2019, a 32-week abortion in Colorado was $10,000 cash, not including flight and hotels, so the idea that it’s likely these procedures are happening with any frequency ≥ 27 weeks based on the economics alone is absurd (when there are fetal indications, insurance will often cover some or all of the procedure). Is it possible there are a few abortions at or after 27 weeks that don't fit the classic “maternal or fetal” indications? For example, there is a well-documented case of a 12-year-old who had been raped and impregnated by her brother, who had an abortion at 29 weeks. Her pregnancy wasn’t discovered for some time and there was a delay in getting her from Michigan to Kansas, where she could have the procedure. Although, I would consider this abortion medically necessary.

But really, this is the actual answer for why people have abortions at or after 27 weeks: 

These Trump abortion lies about “after birth” abortion and abortions at eight or nine months are shiny things for the media because they evoke imagery of wanton, careless women and evil doctors. As if at 36 or so weeks (because the women getting these abortions at or close to term were previously too busy with their hair and nails), scores of women finally book a $99 abortion they easily found on their For You Page on TikTok. Unless they can find a friend who was also just too bored to get her abortion earlier, then they can take advantage of the Monday BOGO abortion deal and split the cost. And if they can’t make it to the local strip mall abortuary because of important reasons, such as shopping, for an extra $20, after they deliver, they will get the doctor to kill their now newborn as part of some kind of package deal. It is a grotesque conspiracy theory, and to let these lies fly by several times in the debate falsely implies they are grounded in reality instead of what they are–fascist lies shrouded in double-speak. And unfortunately, replying to them rationally in real time doesn’t work.

And the media can’t help themselves, because a shiny thing from Trump is just the best.

References

Abortion Surveillance- 2021. Surveillance Summaries / Vol. 72 / No. 9. United States MMWR. November 24, 2023 

Transcript of debate https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript/index.html

Maddow-Zimet I, Gibson C. Despite Bans, Number of Abortions in the United States Increased in 2023. Policy Analysis. Guttmacher Institute. March 2024.https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/despite-bans-number-abortions-united-states-increased-2023

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Abortion statistics, England and Wales: 2021. Updated 2 April 2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2021/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2021

Epner JEG, Jonas HS, Seckinger DL. Late-term Abortion. JAMA. 1998;280(8):724–729. doi:10.1001/jama.280.8.724

Kimport K. Is third-trimester abortion exceptional? Two pathways to abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy in the United States. Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2022 Jun;54(2):38-45. doi: 10.1363/psrh.12190. Epub 2022 Apr 10. PMID: 35403366; PMCID: PMC9321603.