Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Democrat environmental activist turned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now says he considers fetal viability a cutoff point for legal abortion, just days after declaring his opposition to pro-life laws even in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Last week, Kennedy told podcaster Sage Steele he did not want the government to restrict abortion “even if it’s full term,” claiming he would instead reduce abortions through new federal childcare spending. The answer conflicted with his running mate Nicole Shanahan’s statement the year before that she thought “he absolutely believes in limits on abortion,” but fit multiple previous confirmations that he remains “pro-choice,” including that he would sign a federal law to codify Roe v. Wade.
The same day the Steele interview was released, however, Kennedy revised his position, stating that while he was “leery of inserting the government into abortion,” he “had been assuming that virtually all late-term abortions were such cases, but I’ve learned that my assumption was wrong. Sometimes, women abort healthy, viable late-term fetuses. These cases of purely ‘elective’ late-term abortion are very upsetting. Once the baby is viable outside the womb, it should have rights and it deserves society’s protection.”
“I support the emerging consensus that abortion should be unrestricted up until a certain point.” he continued. “I believe that point should be when the baby is viable outside the womb. Therefore I would allow appropriate restrictions on abortion in the final months of pregnancy, just as Roe v. Wade did.” (In fact, while Roe ostensibly permitted abortion bans in the last trimester, the Supreme Court’s companion ruling Doe v. Bolton defined Roe’s “health” exception so broadly as to support effectively unlimited abortion.)
On Thursday, Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear told CNN, “Mr. Kennedy’s position differs from Ms. Shanahan’s, in that he believes the cutoff should be at fetal viability. But both are aligned with the emerging national consensus of no restrictions up till a certain point and restrictions thereafter.”…