Trump is back with one of his most outlandish abortion lies

Former President Donald Trump revived one of his most egregious lies about abortion in a televised interview on Sunday, repeatedly making the easily debunked claim that several states allow doctors to “kill the baby after birth.”

The former president and 2024 Republican front-runner made these claims during a pre-recorded sit-down session interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Trump insisted this was true eight times throughout the interview, despite moderator Kristen Welker’s repeated corrections.

“There are some states where it is allowed to kill the child after birth, and you cannot allow that,” Trump emphasized.

“Look, the Democrats are capable of killing the baby after birth,” he reiterated.

“Even after the baby is born, you can abort the baby,” he claimed.

All of these statements are categorically false. In no state is it legal to intentionally end the life of a newborn.

“Anti-abortion politicians who make these outrageous and false claims are advancing a political agenda at the expense of real patients and people harmed by abortion bans,” Kelly Baden, vice president of policy at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement to HuffPost.

It is critical, she continued, “to counter anti-abortion rhetoric that has no basis in evidence, facts, or standards of medical care and only serves to place abortion providers and patients at risk.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is also unequivocal in its statement that no doctor would perform what Republicans like to call a “postpartum abortion.”

“There is no such process,” ACOG’s statement said websiteand points out that claims like these “are intended to demonize not only the procedure but also the people who perform and receive it.”

Some of Trump’s lies about Abortion Sunday were even very specific. He claimed that New York had “passed a law allowing the baby to be killed after birth” and that a former Virginia governor had advocated infanticide.

New York has never passed such a law, and Trump’s claims it appears to have been ripped straight from a law Social media hoax last year, which was circulating in right-wing circles.

The former Virginia governor Trump was referring to was likely Ralph Northam (D), the said in 2019 that if a mother gives birth to a non-viable fetus, “the child would be fine” and the parents would have the option to make extreme attempts at resuscitation. Republicans have long twisted those comments, as Trump did in his interview on Sunday, portraying them as evidence that a Democrat supports infant euthanasia.

Trump has made similar comments on the campaign trail in recent years, giving rise to this several Fact checks from the media. Florida’s Republican presidential candidate, Gov. Ron DeSantis, recently made an electoral victory the same absurd claimto.

Among those outraged by Trump’s comments was Fred Guttenberga gun reform activist whose daughter Jaime was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“Aside from this being a really stupid lie, there are facts here,” Guttenberg posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “My baby was killed after birth because of gun violence. By blocking gun violence prevention, Republicans appear to be supporting the killing of babies after birth.”