Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the impartial candidate for president, can’t appear to get his place straight on abortion regardless of entry to the process being one of many largest problems with the 2024 election.
The potential spoiler candidate for both Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s way more viable campaigns has taken wildly totally different stances on the problem in latest days, even publicly conflicting together with his marketing campaign employees and operating mate.
Most lately, he issued a prolonged statement final Friday night saying “abortion must be authorized up till a sure variety of weeks,” till the purpose of fetal viability outdoors the womb. He mentioned he solely helps “grotesque” third-trimester abortions when wanted to avoid wasting the lifetime of the mom ― regardless that quite a few incidents for the reason that fall of Roe v. Wade present that supposed safeguard is ineffective.
However simply days earlier, Kennedy professed a wildly totally different stance on the problem. In an interview that aired final Wednesday on former ESPN host Sage Steele’s podcast, he mentioned he was in opposition to any authorities restrictions on the process “even when it’s full time period.” He additionally pushed again on Steele’s claims that sufferers could terminate a being pregnant late right into a time period “when there’s medication concerned and folks aren’t considering,” repeatedly telling her it’s necessary to belief ladies with selections about their our bodies.
Abortions carried out after 21 weeks of being pregnant signify just one% of abortions carried out in america. The overwhelming majority are sought out due to fetal abnormalities or threats to the mom’s well being.
The feedback apparently caught one in every of his advisers utterly off guard.
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“To be utterly clear, that is the primary time I’ve heard this attitude immediately from Mr. Kennedy,” his adviser Angela Stanton King posted on social media. She later launched a video saying she’d spoken with Kennedy and that he’d be releasing a brand new assertion on the matter.
Kennedy’s operating mate, Nicole Shanahan, additionally thought he had a unique stance on abortion.
“My understanding with Bobby’s place is that, you realize, each abortion is a tragedy, is a lack of life,” Shanahan mentioned on an episode of Steele’s podcast that aired per week earlier than Kennedy’s, referring to him by his nickname. “My understanding is that he completely believes in limits on abortion, and we’ve talked about this.
Kennedy’s inconsistencies on abortion date again to the early months of his marketing campaign. When a reporter requested him final August if he’d help a federal ban on abortion after the primary trimester, he replied: “Sure, I might.”
His marketing campaign shortly tried to stroll again his remarks, saying he misunderstood the query “in a crowded, noisy exhibit corridor on the Iowa State Truthful.”
“Mr. Kennedy’s place on abortion is that it’s all the time the lady’s proper to decide on. He doesn’t help laws banning abortion,” his marketing campaign mentioned in a press release.
However as Kennedy’s marketing campaign has progressed, it’s change into clear abortion isn’t one thing he’s snug talking about, regardless that tens of hundreds of thousands of girls of childbearing age have have been immediately affected by the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s choice to wipe out federal protections for the process in 2022.
A Washington Put up evaluation final month discovered that Kennedy, who’s finest identified for spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, solely talked about the phrase “abortion” twice within the 11 speeches and marketing campaign occasions that seem on his YouTube web page. He talked about “vaccine” 10 instances.
When requested for an evidence, his marketing campaign instructed the Put up that Kennedy doesn’t need to give attention to abortion.
“Mr. Kennedy doesn’t need to add gasoline to the hearth,” marketing campaign spokeswoman Stefanie Spear mentioned.
Different points, akin to power illness, she continued, “have the potential to unify the nation, in contrast to abortion, which is basically divisive.”