Trump made false claims about ‘late-term abortion’ during debate

Former President Donald Trump made false claims about late-term abortions during Thursday’s debate with President Joe Biden, experts say.

Abortion is poised to become one of the major issues that will define this year’s presidential election.

On Thursday, Trump repeated his 2016 claims about late-term abortions during a debate against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

He said: “They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, in the ninth month and even after birth.”

By definition, late-term abortions occur at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1% of all abortions occur at this stage of pregnancy. More than 80% occur no later than nine weeks of pregnancy, and only 6% occur between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, i.e. during the second trimester. Abortion does not imply the end of the life of a born baby.

Any claim that this is the case is incorrect, Dr. Dara Kass, an emergency room doctor in New York and former regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NBC News.

“What he’s talking about is murder, and it doesn’t happen in connection with abortion,” she said.

Trump also specifically targeted former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, saying, “He’s ready, as we say, to rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill it.”

During a 2019 interview, Northam was asked about a state bill that would have eliminated a restriction requiring abortions in the second or third trimester to be performed in a hospital. It also would have eliminated the requirement for three doctors to agree that an abortion late in pregnancy is medically necessary.

Northam said he supports having that decision made between families and their doctors, rather than a law that would make that decision for them.

“When we talk about third-trimester abortions, they’re done with the consent of the mother and the doctor, and they’re done in cases where there may be severe malformations, there may be a nonviable fetus,” Northam said in the interview.

Jill Wieber Lens, a law professor at the University of Iowa and an expert on reproductive justice, said: “Northam was talking about a baby born with serious abnormalities, the kinds of things a person discovers late of pregnancy. »

A full-term pregnancy lasts 39 to 40 weeks. If a woman late in pregnancy begins to experience life-threatening symptoms like preeclampsia, doctors may induce labor. Even if the baby is extremely premature (less than 28 weeks), the chances of survival are good. This induction is not an abortion, and if a healthy baby is killed after birth in this way, it is infanticide, experts say.

Often, tests don’t reveal such serious complications until later in the pregnancy, or pregnant women may not know there are serious problems with the fetus — or with their own health — until then. In fact, the number of women who received no prenatal care during pregnancy or who only received prenatal care in the third trimester – between the seventh and ninth months – reached a record high of almost 7%. in 2021, according to CDC data.

If the fetus is not likely to survive, the doctor and family should discuss: “Should we proceed with resuscitation care if this proves unnecessary?” said Wieber Lens, referring to perinatal palliative care. “Northam wasn’t talking about abortion, he was talking about how we care for non-viable babies. »

Wieber Lens said she expects more families will now face choices related to perinatal palliative care, particularly in states that do not have abortion law exemptions for cases of abortion. congenital anomalies.

Complications May Require Difficult Decisions

In an emailed statement to NBC News, a representative for SBA Pro-Life America said: “Most late-term abortions are elective, performed on healthy women with healthy babies for the same reasons that advances for first trimester abortions. »

When asked to define late-term abortions, which have no technical definition, SBA Pro-Life America said it classifies “late-term abortions” as anything that occurs after 15 weeks.

From a medical point of view, the term “late” is an expression that describes a pregnancy after 41 weeks, that is, beyond full term.

It’s true that a significant number of abortions occurring during the second trimester — which lasts from 13 to 27 weeks of pregnancy — are probably not medically necessary, experts say.

“You’re still going to see a significant number of abortions for reasons like late discovery of the pregnancy, or maybe a partner lost their job, or someone had a really difficult choice about whether or not to terminate the pregnancy,” said Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh who is an expert on abortion law.

Women may also have difficulty accessing an abortion, forcing them to make that decision later in their pregnancy when they finally can access it, she added.

“One of the reasons why late-term abortions occur, after 12 weeks, is because states have made it very difficult to have an abortion early in pregnancy,” Wieber Lens said.

In some cases, abortions after 12 weeks are considered medically necessary.

Donley was 20 weeks pregnant when a test revealed that her son had a serious brain abnormality that prevented brain tissue from forming. As a cancer survivor, Donley’s pregnancy was already high risk. At 22 weeks pregnant, Donley made the difficult decision to have an abortion.

“It was devastating,” she said.

Abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy are rare, expensive and are usually performed when a life-threatening diagnosis is made. It is also often difficult to find a doctor to perform an abortion at this point, even in states where abortion is not banned, Donley said.

During the third trimester, which includes weeks 29 to 40 — or the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy — “we’re almost exclusively talking about a majority of medically necessary abortions,” Donley said.

These abortions “are almost always the result of complications such as fetal abnormalities or a life-threatening medical problem,” says Amita Vyas, associate professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and director of the MPH Maternal program. and Child Health at the university. “There are many different medical reasons, from different birth defects to genetic issues that occur. Most of these diagnoses cannot be made earlier in the pregnancy. »