NBC’s Kristen Welker claimed “no one” is arguing for legal abortion up to birth in her new interview with former President Donald Trump, but that claim is demonstrably false.
The new “Meet the Press” moderator sparred with Trump for over an hour on abortion and other issues in an interview released Sunday.
“The radical people on this are really the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth, you’re allowed to terminate the baby,” Trump told Welker during the interview.
“Mr. President, Democrats aren’t saying that,” Welker responded.
Moments later Trump said, “I said with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, ‘rip the baby out of the womb’ in the ninth month. You’re allowed to do that, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”
“Again, no one is arguing for that. That’s not a part of anyone’s platform, Mr. President,” Welker said.
Besides the untold number of abortion activists who advocate for abortion on demand up to birth, a slew of states currently allow abortion at any point in the pregnancy.
Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. all allow abortion with no gestational limits.
While high-profile Democrats often hedge on whether they support any gestational limits on abortion, some have come right out and admitted they support abortion up to the moment of birth.
Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) was direct about his stance during a Fox News segment in June.
“Is there a cutoff for you before [the due date]?” host Shannon Bream asked Cardin.
“No, to me, it’s a reproductive, it’s a health care decision. It’s up to women to make that decision,” Cardin responded.
Dozens of House and Senate Democrats also support the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would legalize abortions after fetal viability, usually around 23 weeks, if in the abortionist’s “good faith medical judgment” the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s health. Mental health is not excluded in the bill’s language.
The Biden administration supports the Act as well, and President Biden lamented Senate Republicans blocking the bill last year.
“The protections that the Women’s Health Protection Act would ensure are essential to the health, safety, and progress of our nation,” Biden said at the time.
In Sunday’s “Meet The Press” interview Trump also said, “the Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth. Nobody wants that.”
“Democrats don’t want that either,” Welker responded.
No Democrat lists infanticide on their platform, but some have appeared to support it, most infamously former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
Northam, a physician, was asked in 2019 whether he would support abortion occurring when the mother is already in labor.
“In this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” Northam told WTOP. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
The same year, all but three Senate Democrats killed a bill that would have protected babies born alive after a failed abortion, requiring doctors to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child” as they would to “any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
At least 10,000 late-term abortions are performed every year. Democrats like to claim most late-term abortions happen because of a fetal abnormality or to save the life of the mother, but there is data to the contrary.
“Data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment,” reads 2013 research published by Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, a journal of the Guttmacher Institute.
As far as the American public goes, NBC’s Welker is correct in downplaying the popularity of legal late-term abortion — a recent Associated Press poll showed only half of Americans want abortion to be legal after 15 weeks, which is still just the beginning of the second trimester.
Democratic politicians, however, are another matter.