Kamala Harris' abortion misinformation – Washington Examiner

The 60-second ad features a young woman named Hadley Duvall. She explains that she was sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of five. Then, at twelve, she became pregnant. She tells the camera: “I had no idea what it meant to be pregnant. But I had options.”

Duvall never had an abortion, although this is not mentioned in the ad. She had a miscarriage.

The ad ends with Hadley saying, “Because Donald Trump fell over Roe v. WadeAcross the country, girls and women have lost the right to vote. Even for rape or incest. Donald Trump did that. He took away our freedom.”

The ad is pleasant. It is also full of falsehoods.

It's true that the Supreme Court overturned roe and that Trump has made a major contribution to this with his nominations. The court corrected a legal and moral wrong that had been on the books for nearly half a century. With the decision, the abortion issue returned to the states. This is federalism, and it remains a good thing despite the anger on both sides of the abortion debate.

The problem with the ad is that it strongly suggests that there are no abortion exemptions for rape or incest nationwide. This can be easily refuted. According to KFF, a total of nine states with abortion bans do not allow exceptions for rape or incest. Arizona has no exception for rape or incest, but allows abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In the other states that have bans of any kind, the exceptions for rape and incest vary. For example, Idaho has a near-total ban on abortion, although exceptions are possible in cases of rape and incest in the first trimester. Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the country, has a ban on abortion with exceptions for the life of the mother and rape or incest, provided law enforcement is informed of the sex crime and the abortion occurs within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

Rape and incest are not the only exceptions. All 41 states that have some type of restriction – including places like California and Illinois, which limit abortion only when it is viable – provide exceptions for “endangering the life of a pregnant person,” according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates abortions begin. A total of 23 states that have restrictions at all allow abortions if the mother's health is at risk. And 12 of these restrictive states allow abortions in the event of a “diagnosis of a fatal fetal anomaly.”

It is important to note how common abortions are in cases of rape or incest. Abortion advocates on the left want to believe that large numbers of women seek abortions for these reasons. That is not the case. A study by the Guttmacher Institute comparing the reasons for abortions is revealing. Only 1% of respondents cited rape as a primary or supporting factor in seeking an abortion. Less than 0.5% of respondents cited incest as a factor. Among the most commonly cited reasons is the desire to have an abortion because it would affect one's life, education, job or relationship, or worsen financial hardship.

Abortion remains widespread. Women can travel to other states for abortions. Even many states with restrictions allow exceptions for rape or incest. And in fact, the number of abortions increased by 11% between 2020 and 2023. Trump himself is against a nationwide ban and personally supports exceptions, including those based on rape or incest.

The abortion landscape in America is not what abortion advocates would like it to be. If anything, the work of creating a life-affirming culture faces an uphill climb. Both political pressure and the social narrative work against this goal.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Rape and incest are sexual crimes that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That's the truth. What is not true is that women have lost their freedoms because of Trump. Federalism allows individual states to enact their own abortion laws. Pro-life Americans like me may not agree that abortion is a solution to rape or incest, but the current post-Dobbs Reality allows it.

Regardless, Vice President Kamala Harris is making Trump the villain in all of this. She and her campaign have no interest in telling the truth.

Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor Washington Examiner Beltway Confidential blog and freelance columnist at Freemen News-Letter.