On Tuesday in New York at the vice presidential debate, a dead-eyed J.D. Vance stared straight into the camera and sought to distance himself from virtually every public position he has ever taken on reproductive rights.
Polls indicate that abortion is a top concern for voters — especially female voters — second only to the economy. That’s obviously a problem for the Trump-Vance ticket, given the fact that Trump is, arguably, the man most responsible for ending federal protections for abortion, and his running mate is even more frothingly anti-abortion than he is.
Ever since the Ohio senator swan-dived onto the national political stage two years ago, he’s left a trail of noxious views on the subject across every platform on which he’s appeared.
He has backed a national abortion ban. “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,” Vance told an Australian podcaster when he was running for Senate, explaining that when different states have different laws, it becomes too easy for women to travel across state lines to obtain abortion care. Later in that conversation he imagined a scenario in which “George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California.”
He’s opposed exceptions — including for rape and incest — to abortion bans, and equated the medical procedure with the practice slavery, saying, “There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it. I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.”
On Tuesday, Vance acknowledged his views on abortion aren’t very popular with “a lot of Americans.” So far, so true! His answer went off the rails after that, as Vance feigned empathy, mentioning a conversation he had with a friend in an abusive relationship who terminated an unwanted pregnancy that would have “destroyed her life.”
The problem is that Vance has repeatedly said he does not believe such abortions — or abortions sought by victims of rape, or by victims of incest — are justified. (“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he’s said.)
He went on to deny — after CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell reminded Vance he said that anyone who doesn’t support a national ban is ”making the United States the most barbaric, pro-abortion regime anywhere in the world” — he ever backed such a ban.
“I never supported a national ban,” Vance shot back. “When I was running for Senate in 2022, I talked about setting a minimum national standard.” …Which is literally what a ban is: a minimum point after which a woman can no longer receive this abortion care.
From there, Vance forged on, trying to rewrite history about his reaction when voters in his home state of Ohio approved a measure that would enshrine reproductive rights in the state’s constitution. “The people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly against my position,” he said on Tuesday. “What I learn from that is we need to do a better job of winning back people’s trust.”
That’s a far cry from what Vance said at the time. “Giving up on the unborn is not an option. It’s politically dumb and morally repugnant. Instead, we need to understand why we lost this battle so we can win the war,” Vance wrote after the abortion ballot measure passed in Ohio. (He added: “There is something sociopathic about a political movement that tells young women (and men) that it is liberating to murder their own children. So let’s keep fighting for our country’s children, and let’s find a way to win.”)
After all that on Tuesday, Vance had the audacity to claim he and Trump “are committed to pursuing pro-family policies, and making child care accessible and making fertility treatments more accessible.”
That, unsurprisingly, is another demonstrable lie: Just two weeks ago ago, the Senate held a vote to protect the right to in vitro fertilization nationwide. Vance skipped the vote. (In July, Vance voted to block a similar IVF measure.) The bill was seen as necessary because earlier this year, a Republican-appointed state Supreme Court justice in Alabama issued a ruling that threw the legality of fertility treatments into doubt, temporarily shutting down facilities across the state.
Vance said on Tuesday that he didn’t support surveillance of women’s pregnancies — another lie. Vance joined other Republican lawmakers in signing a letter opposing the Biden administration’s efforts to protect women’s medical records from being shared with law enforcement. (Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda for Trump’s next term, envisions a federal monitor.) It was a truly staggering display of dissembling.
Meanwhile, one would be hard-pressed to find a clearer contrast on reproductive rights than the man standing on the opposite end of the stage. Walz has been a champion for abortion rights for years. Long before the Supreme Court decided to overturn the federal right to abortion, Walz was an unapologetic champion for reproductive rights. Running in a deep-red district that had elected exactly one other Democrat in more than 100 years, Walz defeated a six-term incumbent who voted for a ban on abortions. At the time, Walz said he opposed that bill “because we know when you start to criminalize it, that has nothing to do with reduction of abortions.”
In Congress, Walz maintained perfect ratings from both Planned Parenthood and NARAL (now known as Reproductive Freedom for All), and when he left to campaign for governor of Minnesota, he did so declaring proudly: “My record is so pro-choice Nancy Pelosi asked if I should tone it down. I stand with Planned Parenthood!” He won that race and, following the Dobbs decision, Walz became the first governor in the country to sign new legislation enshrining the right to abortion into law.
“”This is a very simple proposition,” Walz said on Tuesday. “These are women’s decisions to make — about their health care.”