Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently told NBC News reporter Ali Vitali in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sunday that he would sign a 15-week federal abortion ban into law if elected president, but then backtracked later in the day.
“The decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life,” Kennedy told Vitali.
Vitali then asked the Democratic presidential candidate whether he would “cap” abortion after three months of pregnancy.
“Yes, three months,” replied Kennedy. “Once a child is viable outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child. I’m for medical freedom. Individuals ought to be able to make their own choices.”
“I think the states have a right to protect a child once the child becomes viable, and that right, it increases. And I think there’s very, very few abortions that are performed after that period of time anyway,” he added.
RFK Jr. tells an MSNBC reporter that he supports a federal abortion ban after three months. pic.twitter.com/MmFh3Kn9gN
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 14, 2023
Hours later, Kennedy’s presidential campaign issued a statement regarding RFk Jr.’s remarks on abortion.
“Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by a NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” his campaign wrote in an unsigned statement on Sunday. “Mr. Kennedy’s position on abortion is that it is always the woman’s right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion.”
Kennedy’s campaign issues a “clarification,” not attributed to him, which states that he didn’t mean to give the answer that he gave: https://t.co/itR3AfN7VD pic.twitter.com/OWjOi1f07B
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) August 14, 2023
Kennedy’s remarks drew praise from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which lauded his comments as “a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s radical stance of abortion on demand, with no protection for babies in the womb or their mothers, right up to the end of pregnancy.”
“It recalls a party that most of its leaders today, including Joe Biden before he caved to the extreme Left, have abandoned – one that believed, or at least claimed to believe, that abortion should be ‘rare,’” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, said.
Kennedy is known for frequently defecting from his party on national issues. Notably, the Democratic presidential candidate has gone against his party concerning the COVID-19 vaccine, which he does not support. RFK Jr. infamously said the virus may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews.
Kennedy is the son of the late attorney general and New York senator, Robert F. Kennedy. He is also the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy. RFK Jr. currently trails President Joe Biden by 50.3 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average.
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