Kamala Harris, Donald Trump fight over abortion in fiery debate
Kamala Harris. Donald Trump. Image via AP.

Harris Trump
Trump denied he would sign a national abortion ban or monitor pregnancies.

Vice President Kamala Harris charged that former President Donald Trump will approve a national abortion ban and monitor women’s pregnancies and miscarriages as she defended women’s reproductive rights during Tuesday’s presidential debate.

Abortion rights became a fiery, prominent issue when the two candidates clashed in their first meeting.

Harris said a woman bleeding from a miscarriage or a child survivor from incest may need access to an abortion, but physicians are afraid to treat them since more than 20 states criminalize the procedure.

“The majority of Americans believe in a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body,” Harris said as she argued that her opponent would ban abortion nationally under Project 2025, created by the Heritage Foundation.

Trump denied he would sign a national abortion ban or monitor pregnancies and has repeatedly said he would not back Project 2025, though several of his allies worked to craft the plan.

“Well, there she goes again. It’s a lie. I’m not signing a ban,” Trump responded. “And there’s no reason to sign a ban. Because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted,” as he referenced the end of Roe v. Wade.

Trump mocked Harris for pledging to sign a bill if Congress reinstated the protections of Roe v. Wade.

“You know what it reminds me of? When they said they’re going to get student loans terminated and it ended up being a total catastrophe,” Trump said.

Moderator Linsey Davis brought up Trump’s flip-flop on his support for Florida’s upcoming Amendment 4 initiative that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution.

“In your home state of Florida, you surprised many with regard to your six-week abortion ban because you initially had said that it was too short and you said, ‘I’m going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.’ But then the very next day, you reversed course and said you would vote to support the six-week ban,” Davis said to introduce the abortion topic during the debate.

Trump responded by accusing Harris’ vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz, and Democrats of supporting abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy and “execution after birth.” 

“The Democrats are radical in that,” Trump said.

Davis fact checked him later saying, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”

Harris also disputed that elective abortions are happening in their ninth month of pregnancy.

“Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America,” Harris said.

In explaining his views, Trump said he supports abortion exceptions for rape, incest and saving the mother’s life.

“I believe strongly in it. Ronald Reagan did also,” Trump said.

He added that abortion needs to be decided at the state level, and that’s what is happening since he did a “great service” in helping overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case.

“Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote. And that’s what happened,” Trump said, falsely arguing there was unanimity on this issue.

“Each individual state is voting. It’s the vote of the people now. It’s not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six Justices.”

Gabrielle Russon

Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson .


8 comments

  • Dont Say FLA

    September 11, 2024 at 9:05 am

    Love how Donald J Slump’s latest excuse is that eliminating Roe is yielding the same result in every state where it’s been voted on, therefore he did nothing bad, it was all good. LOL. Umm except all the other states where it hasn’t been voted on yet, and the G0P Run States with extra skeezy state G0Ps working to undermine the voters having their say.

    But taking Mr Slump’s reasoning to its logical conclusion of all 50 states’ voters all having enacted the protections of Roe v Wade in their state constitutions, Slump managed to achieve two outcomes: #1- waste a bunch of time and money. #2- enshrine protection for womens rights into every states constitution. #1, in my estimation as a fiscal conservative, is an epic fail. #2, to so-called pro-lifers, is also an epic fail.

    Donald J Slump excels at failing. He basically declared abortion bankruptcy, only yielding a restructure while wasting a ton of money.

  • Ron Forrest Ron

    September 11, 2024 at 9:09 am

    Former President Trump should have his neck checked by a doctor.

    All throughout last night’s debate, he looked as if his neck had melted and his pained face was growing straight out of his rib cage.

    The MAGA candidate is demonstrably too weak to hold his own head up, so how can he claim to be a strong man?

    Falsely, that’s how, same as all his other claims. Weak. Sad.

  • Fire Man

    September 11, 2024 at 9:12 am

    The only flames I saw during that debate was Trump’s pants on fire, just as the guy’s pants always are.

  • Ocean Joe

    September 11, 2024 at 9:40 am

    Good debate, a lot of questions not answered by either. Both missed some good opportunities. Harris massively outperformed expectations, Trump was Trump. Nobody’s eyes went glassy or mouth hung open. Nobody killed Medicare this time. Trump’s fans dont like the real time fact checking because they believe everything he says. Moderators seemed fair. Stopped her from responding, caved to him letting him respond which ultimately helped her. Maybe letting him speak is the reason Trump’s fans think the moderators were unfair.

  • Linwood Wright

    September 11, 2024 at 9:48 am

    They’re executing babies! They’re eating cats!

    My god, Trump’s brain really has been fully consumed by the worms hasn’t it.

    • Dont Say FLA

      September 11, 2024 at 12:49 pm

      Turnip J Truck and Toadie Pants are the ones eating cats.

      They are trying to force lonely young women into having babies by eating their cats!

      Cucker Tarlson told them it was a great idea that can’t lose.

  • Marvin M.

    September 11, 2024 at 10:14 pm

    I hope everybody understood from the debate that Trump never said he would sign a national abortion ban.
    He avoided trying to say that so, so much. So if national abortion ban is what you want, maybe Trump isn’t your guy.

    Also remember, his lie about “abortion after birth” was called out for the lie it is. There is no such thing (after birth it is in fact always illegal under current law in every state), and no one, democrat, republican, independent, supports that. Complete lie on Trump’s part to suggest that it is happening and that any group supports it, but he keeps repeating it, even after he has been told that it is not true.

    Same with “immigrants eating pets”. Totally untrue. Yet he repeated the lie. Even after being corrected by the moderator, he tried to claim something like “well, I saw it on TV”. For God’s sake, what idiot just believes everything they see on TV?

    Call me crazy, but I don’t want that person as my president. A person that delusional who will believe such easily debunked nonsense, will send this country into a ditch faster than that you can say supercalifragilisticexpelidocious [sp?]

  • Wont Sign It

    September 12, 2024 at 8:56 am

    Please let’s all remember that “I won’t sign such and such bill” means “I will leave the bill to go into law without my signature as happens when the President does not explicitly veto a bill”

    When Turnip J Truck says he won’t sign an abortion ban bill, that means he will let it sit for 30 days (or however long it is) to become law automatically, by default, after avoiding the veto.

Comments are closed.


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