No one said late term abortions don't happen.
They said infanticide (Live babies being born and then killed) doesn't happen.
The problem with that is Trump didn't claim they did. He attributed a remark to Northam in West Virginia, that they would "decide what to do with the baby." Northam left himself open to that criticism of his position. He also cited Walz, who signed a law allowing abortion at any time, and removing reporting requirements about live births. That is objectively true. Trump said that he had an issue with "abortion in the ninth month."
Linsey Davis then countered with "There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born." That is not what Trump said. He was given no chance to respond as Davis immediately asked Harris to respond to Davis's criticism of Trump.
In general, I believe that if the moderators are going to get involved in debate points, the candidates should be able to respond to their remarks. I think that would give us a much better understanding of each candidate's position. Of course, I'm also going to say that if you intend to allow moderators to enter the debate as well as ask the questions, they should address their observations to both sides. Harris was never really questioned at all on her false statements.
Even the question that led us down this path was phrased as an attack on Trump's position. This is how she framed the question:
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. Vice President Harris says that women shouldn’t trust you on the issue of abortion because you’ve changed your position so many times. Therefore, why should they trust you?
The reality, for anyone that takes the time to understand his actual position is that he thinks it should be around 15-16 weeks with exceptions, before viability and gives the mother a reasonable opportunity to make a decision. The choice given to Florida voters, however, is between a law that says 6 weeks or a constitutional amendment that says no limit.
A law can be modified by the legislature at any time. A constitutional amendment would not allow for modification in the law. In that scenario, if you want an answer somewhere in the middle, as Trump has stated, you would be compelled to vote against the amendment and lobby the legislature to loosen up their time frame in the law. That is where he stands, which is logical and consistent. He has not "reversed course" at all.
Further, the question conflates his personal opinion with his policy. His policy is that abortion law is up to the states to decide, not the federal government. Therefore there should be no federal ban on abortion.
When it came time to ask Harris about her position, the question from Davis was:
Vice President Harris, I want to give you your time to respond. But I do want to ask, would you support any restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion?
See the difference? The question was posed to Trump as a criticism of his position. The question was asked to Harris in a straight forward manner, and even assumed that abortion is a right (the left wing position). My question is why weren't they both asked the question in the same simple, straight forward manner:
Would you support any restrictions on abortion?
