Asked at a campaign stop on Monday whether he supports third-trimester abortions, Beto O’Rourke replied, “That should be a decision that the woman makes about her own body. I trust her.” The third trimester is the last 12 weeks of pregnancy and past the gestational age preemies can be routinely delivered and survive.
Campaigning in Cleveland, the presidential candidate took a question from someone in the crowd who spent 30 seconds discussing late-term procedures, specifically asking, “Are you for or against third-trimester abortions?”
O’Rourke then provided a deceptively general recap of the inquiry to his audience. “The question is about abortion and reproductive rights,” he told the crowd, before giving what a Texas Tribune reporter described as a “brief” response. “My answer to you is that that should be a decision that the woman makes about her own body,” the former congressman said. “I trust her.”
Only 12 percent of American women support keeping third-trimester abortions legal, according to the latest Gallup polling. Huge opposition to late-term abortion has been a consistent poll finding for decades.
.@BetoORourke, asked whether he supports abortions in the third trimester, gives a brief answer. "My answer is that that should be a decision that the woman makes," O'Rourke says. "I trust her."
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) March 18, 2019
Video of the exchange was posted online by the conservative PAC America Rising, which confirmed to The Federalist that O’Rourke moved onto the next question after the clip ends.
As a member of the House, O’Rourke consistently racked up 100-percent ratings from the pro-abortion group NARAL. He voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have banned abortion 20 weeks after fertilization, in October 2017.
Writing in National Review amid debate over the radical bill proposed in Virginia’s House of Delegates last January, John McCormack noted, “Democrats running for president in 2020 haven’t commented on the Virginia abortion bill, but most of them have effectively already told us where they stand, because they have cosponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, federal legislation that would override state restrictions on third-trimester abortions.” O’Rourke was a co-sponsor of the House version.
