Vance, Walz clash over late-term abortion, protections for born-alive infants in debate

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 2, 2024 / 09:15 am

In their first and only vice presidential debate this election season, Republican Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday night clashed on whether abortion should be a federal or state issue and sparred over each other’s records on abortion limits and protections for infants born alive from botched abortions.

During the Oct. 1 CBS debate, moderated by network anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, both candidates quarreled over abortion policy and about which presidential ticket has the best track record on handling illegal immigration and the economy.

Vance is an incumbent senator from Ohio running on former president Donald Trump’s ticket, while Walz is the incumbent governor of Minnesota serving as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. Vance is a convert to Catholicism and Walz was raised Catholic but now attends a Lutheran church. 

Much of the debate remained civil, with both candidates occasionally trading kind words with each other.

In some cases, Vance and Walz agreed on policy goals — such as reducing illegal immigration, lowering housing costs, and making child care more accessible — but feuded over whether Trump or Harris has the best plan and track record for achieving those goals.

Late-term abortion and infants born alive

The main dispute on abortion policy focused on whether it should be handled by the federal government or at the state level. Walz backed a federal law to legalize abortion nationally, which would overturn state-level pro-life laws. Alternatively, Vance advocated a state-by-state approach to regulating abortion.

Walz defended a 2023 Minnesota bill he signed establishing that every person in the state has a right to “obtain an abortion” and prevents local governments from limiting that right. The bill does not include any restrictions on abortion at any point in pregnancy and state law permits elective abortion through the ninth month of pregnancy for any reason.

“What we did was restore Roe v. Wade,” Walz said. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. … How can we as a nation say that your life and your rights — as basic as the right to control your own body —  is determined [by] geography?” 

When asked by O’Donnell whether Walz supports abortion “in the ninth month,” the governor said “that’s not what the bill says.” He did not say whether he would support any restrictions on late-term abortions but said, “We trust women [and] we trust doctors.”

Vance pressed Walz on another bill he signed as governor that removed language that had previously required doctors to “preserve the life and health of the born-alive infant” after a failed abortion. The new standard only requires doctors to “care for the infant who is born alive” but does not expressly require them to take lifesaving measures.

“[This law] says that a doctor who presides over an abortion, where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion,” Vance argued. “That is … fundamentally barbaric.”

Walz interrupted to say “that’s not true” and accused Vance of “trying to distort the way a law is written to try and make a point.” The governor did not further explain his understanding of the law but claimed, “That’s not what the law says.”

Vance also questioned Walz on whether he would “want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will,” which the governor did not directly answer. 

“We can be a big and diverse country where we respect people’s freedom of conscience and make the country more pro-baby and pro-family,” Vance said. 

When asked about abortion, Vance said a Trump administration would seek to “be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word” by supporting “fertility treatments” and making it easier for parents to afford to have children by expanding the child tax credit and reducing housing costs. 

“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us,” Vance said.

“The proper way to handle this — as messy as democracy sometimes is — is to let voters make these decisions,” the senator added. “Let the individual state make their abortion policy.”

Vance further noted that Ohio voters adopted a referendum to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution, which was “against my position.” He also said he “never supported a national ban.”

Illegal immigration and the economy

Both candidates agreed that lawmakers need to work to reduce illegal immigration, but the two argued over whether Trump or Harris is more qualified to solve the problem. 

“A lot of fentanyl is coming into our country,” Vance said. “I have a mother who struggled with opioid addiction and has gotten clean. I don’t want people who are struggling with addiction to be deprived of their second chance because Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our community at record levels.”

Vance said the federal government should build a wall on the American border with Mexico and re-implement mass deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally, beginning with those who have committed additional crimes after coming into the country. 

Walz criticized the Trump administration, saying “less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime.” He argued that Harris would be better on illegal immigration and chided Republican lawmakers for sinking a border bill earlier this year. 

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“[Harris] is the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions,” Walz said, referencing the vice president’s work as a prosecutor in California.

Vance also argued that illegal immigration under the Biden-Harris administration is one of the causes of the higher cost of housing because migrants compete for homes. He said a Trump administration would also lower the cost of housing by using federal land to build homes and driving down energy costs.

“We have a lot of land that could be used,” Vance said. “We have a lot of Americans that need homes. We should be kicking out illegal immigrants who are competing for those homes and we should be building more homes for the American citizens who deserve to be here.”

Walz promoted Harris’ plan to provide assistance for down payments on houses, impose price controls on certain products, and expand small business tax credits. 

“We’ll just ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share,” Walz said. “When you do that, our system works best, more people are participating in it and folks have the things that they need.”

Both candidates expressed their intent to make child care more accessible and expand the child tax credit.