How Kamala Harris Can Hit Back on Trump's Abortion Lies

If Democrats want to win, they must go on offense

Last night, Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on abortion rights for the first time since she became the presumptive presidential nominee, declaring her “a radical crazy person.” The good news is that Trump used language that’s not just predictable—but beatable. The only question is whether Harris’ campaign is willing to break with Democrats’ standard messaging to make that happen. 

Trump’s regular refrain on abortion is to claim that Democrats support “late” and “post-birth” abortion, and his attack on Harris at a North Carolina rally was no different:

“She is so radical, she wants abortions in the eighth and ninth month of pregnancy. That's fine with her. Right up until birth, and even after birth. The execution of a baby, because that's not abortion, that's the execution of a baby.”

As dangerous as the lie is—after all, we know what this kind of rhetoric leads to—Harris has an opportunity to hit back at Trump in a new way. For too long, Democrats have relied on saying that Republican claims about abortion later in pregnancy are myths, if they’re not ignoring the attacks altogether. That timidity is a huge mistake.

If the vice president is willing to leave behind Biden-era defensiveness, she can destroy conservatives’ most powerful abortion talking point once and for all.

After all, Americans support abortion rights because they oppose government interference in pregnancy, but also because they’re horrified by the cruelty of abortion bans. Harris should remind voters that when Trump talks about ‘executions,’ he is talking about real people who have been through real traumas. She needs to make him eat his words. 

Most people don’t know, for example, that conservative claims about ‘post-birth’ abortions didn’t come out of nowhere. They originated from an interview with former Virginia governor Ralph Northam, who answered a question about a (highly insulting) hypothetical scenario in which a woman in labor wants an abortion. Northam replied that third trimester abortions are largely done in cases of severe fetal abnormalities or when a fetus is nonviable. He said, “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.”

Northam was referring to the very real decision some parents have to make about whether or not to decline extreme life-saving measures for fatally-ill newborns. When babies have lethal conditions or are born too early to survive, many parents would understandably prefer to spend those last precious moments with their children peacefully—without doctors performing medically invasive, painful, and ultimately futile procedures. 

It’s not uncommon for NICU nurses to help parents set up in a private room, maybe with a chair and blanket, so they can say goodbye to their baby without wires, breathing tubes or beeping machines. In these final minutes, families want to give their children peace and dignity.

That’s what Trump means by ‘post-birth’ abortions. Those are the parents he is calling executioners. Americans should know that.

Parents who’ve had to make this impossible decision have already been speaking out against Republican ‘Born Alive’ bills, which would prevent families from having those last quiet moments with their babies. Their stories are out there, and deserve to be heard.

Similarly, when Trump talks about ‘late’ abortions, Harris should ask him who, exactly, he is talking about. Is it Kate Cox, the Texas woman who had to flee the state to get care for her nonviable pregnancy? Is it Amanda Zurawski, who went septic after being denied an abortion?

The majority of horror stories that have come out since Roe was overturned are from women who needed abortions later in pregnancy. These are the stories that have consistently moved voters—why would Democrats ignore an opportunity to talk about them? Or to make clear that Trump is attacking vulnerable and already-harmed women?

The people who’ve been most harmed by abortion bans should be Democrats’ most powerful allies in this election.

While Trump regurgitates the same lines he’s used to target all Democrats on abortion, Harris has a chance to do something new and to put the disgraced former president on his heels. Make him face the real people that he blithely calls murderers. Trump’s sociopathy might prevent him from caring, but it absolutely will make a difference to voters.

If Democrats want abortion to help them win this November, they must go on offense. Those still worried about seeming ‘extreme’ should consider that Americans largely understand that pregnancy is too complicated to legislate, that Trump will call them radicals regardless of their messaging, and—most of all—remember that it wasn’t so long ago that abortion itself was seen as a third rail issue.

Besides, nearly all of Republicans’ messages on abortion, from their focus on ‘exceptions’ to lying about the word ‘ban,’ are barely-disguised defensive crouches. Accusations of extremism and ‘executions’ are Republicans’ last proactive abortion message. With Harris as the nominee—someone who knows about abortion rights and understands the issue deeply—we have a chance to shut it down for good.