A politician’s clumsy response to a question about late-term abortion spiraled into a new hyperbole during the last month. Now, some conservative writers are using the word “infanticide” instead of “abortion,” with or without context, to demonize abortion rights advocates and Democrats at large.
Abortion and infanticide aren’t interchangeable words. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, and infanticide is the murder of a baby 12 months old or younger. Abortion is legal, and infanticide is a crime often preceded by child neglect or abuse.
So, why did some conservatives begin railing against Democrats for, in their view, advocating for infanticide?
The gross exaggeration started with a bill in Virginia that died in committee and would have reduced certain abortion restrictions, like the state’s 24-hour waiting period. The bill also would loosen some requirements for third-trimester abortions, which women can’t obtain without certifications from three doctors.
Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, received viral attention for saying the bill would allow a woman to get an abortion while giving birth. Although she went on to say that she misspoke and that abortion wouldn’t be permitted during labor, the damage was already done.
Late last month, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam appeared on Washington, DC radio station WTOP, where he was asked to respond to Tran’s comment. He spoke about what would occur during a scenario where a woman went into labor during an abortion, chiefly that “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.”
San Francisco abortion provider Jenn Conti told The Washington Post that abortions aren’t performed when women are giving birth, but some conservatives began to claim just the opposite. Tran and Northam’s comments became kindling for the idea that Democrats support giving abortions to women during labor, and ultimately, that Democrats endorse murdering babies.
For instance, Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce wrote in a Washington Times column about something completely unrelated, the Green New Deal, that Democrats are “moving in several states to legitimize infanticide” without providing any explanation of what she meant. President Donald Trump also jumped on the bandwagon at a rally in El Paso, where he claimed Northam supported infanticide.
One of the greatest ironies of the attention paid to Northam’s comments is that late-term abortions are quite rare. Of all abortions performed in 2015, only about 1 percent took place at 21 weeks of gestation or later, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vast majority of abortions, 91 percent, took place at 13 weeks or sooner.
Northam was way off during his segment on WTOP, but that doesn’t make abortion and infanticide the same thing. Equating the two elevates abortion to the level of a felony crime, while minimizing the gravity of actual child murder.
Contact Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 orbryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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