In debate, Trump repeats false claim on Northam condoning infanticide

(WAVY) — Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam allowed babies to be killed after they were born during a debate Thursday with current President Joe Biden, NBC News and two fact checking organizations stated.

Trump, who will be in Chesapeake Friday for a rally, said the following, in reference to Northam, in the debate:

“They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth. After birth. If you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do so, and we’ll determine what we do with the baby. Meaning we’ll kill the baby. … So that means he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth. Because some states, Democrat-run, take it after birth. Again, the governor, the former Virginia governor, put the baby down so that we decide what to do with it. He’s willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen, Democrat or Republican; nobody wants it to happen.”

FactCheck.org said that Trump’s claim “distorts the facts.” In 2020, it wrote that Trump “has repeatedly distorted Northam’s comments, as well as facts, regarding Virginia’s abortion law.”

Snopes.com also called Trump’s claim “factually flawed.”

An NBC News analysis of Trump’s comments say they were false, and that, “while some Democrats support broad access to abortion regardless of gestation age, infanticide is illegal, and no Democrats advocate for it.” It said Trump first made the claim in 2019 following Northam’s controversial comments. Trump said abortion laws should be left up to states, and supported abortions in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.

Biden, in his response to Trump’s comments, said “it’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done. The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe [vs. Wade] when it was decided, supported Roe. And … this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous.”

Northam, in a Jan. 30, 2019 radio interview, was questioned on his view regarding a controversial abortion bill that was drafted in the Virginia General Assembly that year.

In the interview, Northam stated that “when we talk about third trimester abortions … it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that is non-viable,” Northam said. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. 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.”

Not long after the interview, FactCheck.org noted that Trump “decried Northam’s comments and accused him of condoning infanticide.”

A Northam spokesman said his interview comments were “focused on the tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor. The former governor, he said, was “absolutely not” referring to infanticide.

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