ADVERTISEMENT

Klobuchar Claims She Has Not Heard Northam's Late-Term Abortion Comments

May 17, 2019

During a Friday morning appearance on The View, senator and Democrat presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) claimed she had not heard Gov. Ralph Northam's (D., Va.) controversial comments about late-term abortion.

Klobuchar was asked by The View co-host Meghan McCain whether she agreed with Northam's support of late-term abortions up until birth.

"Are you for what he said?" McCain asked of Klobuchar.

"I don't know all his comments but what I do know is that I'm for women having the right to make a choice about her own body," Klobuchar responded.

McCain retorted that Northam's remarks "got a lot of publicity."

Northam's comments in a late January sparked widespread commendation including from President Donald Trump who accused the Virginia Governor of supporting infanticide at a rally in April.

"If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," Northam said during a January radio interview. "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."

"To hear it described by the governor of Virginia in the way he described it was grisly and alarming, I think, to most people, and it woke a sleeping giant," House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.) said following the governor's statements. Scalise was just one of many Republican elected officials to express their disgust with Northam's comments.

Joy Behar, another cohost, tried to pushback against McCain's question arguing that the late-term abortions she was describing were "so rare."

McCain interrupted Behar and defended asking the question as a "cultural conversation" the country is having.

Abortion-related bills in state legislatures have received significant coverage from the media this year. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill passed by the Democrat state legislature that made it lawful for women to seek abortions after 24 weeks otherwise known as third-trimester abortions. Republican-controlled statehouses have pursued legislation limiting abortion rights including in Alabama this week where the Republican governor Kay Ivey signed a law banning all abortion in the state unless the woman's life is in danger.