BY GABRIELLE M. ETZEL | WASHINGTON EXAMINER | JUNE 27, 2024
President Joe Biden denied supporting late-term abortion and said he merely wanted to go back to the standard of Roe v. Wade during the first 2024 general election debate, but he has supported legislation that would go beyond Roe and allow for abortions late in pregnancy.
Biden, when asked whether he would support any gestational age limits on abortion, responded, “I support Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters.”
At another point, when former President Donald Trump said Democrats support laws that allow doctors to “take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth,” Biden vehemently disagreed.
“That is simply not true,” Biden said. “Roe v. Wade does not provide for that. That’s not the circumstance. Only woman’s life is in danger. She’s going to die. That’s the only circumstance which that can happen. But we are not for late-term abortion, period.”
But the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation supported by Biden following the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in May 2022, would have liberalized abortion beyond Roe.
The bill would have created a statutory right to the procedure up until the point of viability and beyond that point if the doctor, using “good-faith medical judgment,” determined that the procedure is necessary “for the preservation of the life or health of the person who is pregnant.”
The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), said of the bill that there was a blurry line between the physical and mental health of the mother in the context of abortion.
Supreme Court precedent also has a liberal interpretation of what constitutes a health exception from the case Doe v. Bolton, which says health can include “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age.”
Many conservatives at the time denounced the WHPA on the grounds that it would be too broad and essentially allow abortion on demand.
“Under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion. You can do whatever you want, depending on the state,” Trump said. “We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans.”
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Last Updated on October 9, 2024 by Real KBrett