Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said, while he respects those who have “absolute moral clarity” on the issue, he believes the decision to abort a child in the eighth month of pregnancy is morally “nuanced and complex.”
In an interview with Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro, RFK Jr. disagreed that a child has an independent right to life even in the third trimester.
Shapiro opened by saying that arguments justifying abortion based on “bodily autonomy” are “completely missing the point: We’re not talking about the woman’s bodily autonomy; we’re talking about the baby’s bodily autonomy.” As such, abortion is “not just a tragedy; it’s a crime against the child, because the child has an independent interest. What do you say to that?”
“I say that I understand that position, and I don’t agree with it,” replied RFK Jr. “The solution of having the state come in and dictate choices that the woman is making is not — that’s not a good solution to me.”
Seeking to clarify the Independent presidential candidate’s position, Shapiro asked, “You don’t believe that the child has an independent right to life, for example, at any point during the pregnancy?”
“There is no woman who gets pregnant, carries that baby for eight months, and then decides to have an abortion for some frivolous reason,” Kennedy answered. “Nobody in their right mind would do that.”
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“There are very, very rare cases where that happens. There’s always some kind of extenuating circumstances that I don’t feel prepared to turn that over to the government. You and I will differ on that,” Kennedy told Shapiro.
“I understand your position. I have tremendous respect for you for having that kind of absolute moral clarity on that position. But I think it’s more nuanced and complex than that,” Kennedy stated.
Yet research conducted by pro-abortion sources contradict years of assertions from the abortion industry that late-term abortions do not happen, or only happen in cases of severe fetal anomaly.
A study of late-term abortions, published in the Guttmacher Institute’s journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health and conducted by two researchers associated with the abortion advocacy group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), found that “data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” More than one-third (37%) of “women reported that the process of deciding whether to have an abortion slowed them down” and “faced difficulty covering the costs associated with their abortion.” They concluded, “We did not find that changing personal circumstances contributed to delays in seeking abortion.”
One of the authors of the study, Diana Greene Foster, was quoted in a 2018 report that “abortions for fetal anomaly ‘make up a small minority of later abortion.’” The other, Katrina Kimport, noted the “similarities between respondents’ experiences and that of people seeking abortion at other gestations” in a 2022 study.
“Each year, over 50,000 abortions are performed after 15 weeks of gestation, when unborn babies can feel pain,” representing a little more than 1% of all abortions reported nationwide, reports the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, analyzing data collected from the Guttmacher Institute and the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
RFK Jr.’s running mate shares his commitment to abortion-on-demand. Nicole Shanahan, the ex-wife of Google founder Sergey Brin, shares his commitment to abortion-on-demand. As “a person with a womb,” wrote Shanahan in a post on the social media platform X on April 9, “I don’t like the feeling of anyone having control over my body. It is coercive. It is wrong.” She added that, personally, she “would not feel right terminating a viable life living inside of me, especially if I am both healthy and that baby is healthy.”
“I can hold both beliefs, as someone who believes in the sacredness of life, simultaneously,” Shanahan asserted.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. created a short boom of interest late last summer, when he seemed to imply he would sign a law protecting babies from abortion after the first trimester. “I believe that the decision to abort a child should be up to the woman during the first three months of life,” declared the then-Democratic primary candidate last August.
“So, you would cap it at 15 weeks? Or 21 weeks?” asked NBC News reporter Ali Vitali.
“Yes. Three months,” Kennedy replied.
“So, three months — you would sign a federal cap on that?” Vitali clarified a second time.
“Yes, I would,” Kennedy continued. “Once a child is viable outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting that child.”
Within hours, his campaign produced an unsigned statement reversing the candidate’s stated position. “Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by [an] NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” it read.
No pro-life Democrat has been named to a national ticket, as president or vice president, since Robert F. Kennedy’s uncle, Sargent Shriver, in 1972. The last pro-life Democrat to mount a serious presidential candidacy was former Florida Governor Reubin Askew in 1984.
Both major party candidates have worried about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in recent weeks. President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee have built a large operation designed to undercut RFK Jr.’s left-leaning independent presidential run, according to Axios. Earlier this month, Biden received the endorsement of many members of the Kennedy family. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump personally lashed out at Kennedy on Truth Social, saying he would endorse Joe Biden before he would vote for RFK Jr.
Polls show Kennedy drawing support from both candidates.
Kennedy returned fire at Trump in the Shapiro interview, saying the 45th president broke his promise to “Drain the Swamp” and “got rolled by his bureaucrats.” He highlighted Trump’s appointments of Scott Gotlieb, who ping-ponged between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the FDA, and Alex Azar, who signed off on a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein. RFK Jr. also complained about Trump’s National Security Advisor, “swamp creature” John Bolton to Shapiro, who aligns more closely with Bolton’s neoconservative foreign policy than Kennedy’s noninterventionism.
In a separate interview, Kennedy told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo that the Trump campaign had approached him about being Trump’s vice presidential running mate “on multiple occasions.”
Kennedy, who only recently backed away from a threat to prosecute oil companies for exercising their free-speech rights to deny climate change, is courting the Libertarian Party.
In Michigan, RFK Jr. will serve as the presidential candidate of the Natural Law Party — a minor party founded by followers of the late Hindu teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and whose candidates have said many social problems, from stress to the economy, can be cured through transcendental meditation.
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
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