Where did the ‘post-birth abortion’ claim even come from?

If you tuned into the debate last night, you likely didn’t miss the moment when former President Donald Trump asserted, in his response to a question on abortion, that babies are born then killed after birth.

“They have abortion in the ninth month. They even have—and you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor who’s doing an excellent job, but the governor before, he said the baby will be born, and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we’ll execute the baby.”

The line was predictable. The completely false claim (it was immediately fact-checked and declared false by moderator Linsey Davis during the live debate) isn’t new. It’s one Republicans have been repeating for years now. As the election looms, Trump seems to be leaning into it more fervently.

“Post-birth abortion,” or killing babies after they are born, is, of course, not a legal practice. However, it’s such a bizarre assertion that even if voters can’t fully digest it, they still may be so alarmed or confused enough by the statement to wonder if there is, in fact, some shred of truth at the root of the claim.

Where does the claim come from?

Contrary to Trump’s words, babies are not being executed after they are born. The false assertion began after a 2019 radio interview given by former Virginia (not West Virginia) Governor Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist. The former governor was asked if women should be able to access late-term abortions and if he supported state legislation that would lift restrictions on them.

Northam began by explaining that third-trimester abortions come into the discussion when there are “severe deformities” or “non-viable” fetuses. In other words, babies that cannot survive outside the womb without extraordinary life-saving measures. He spoke about infants being kept “comfortable.” He even pressed that multiple physicians being present is advisable in such cases because of how challenging it is to decide whether to keep a baby alive who will soon die anyway.

What happens without late-term abortion?

Northman’s stance isn’t controversial, and we’ve already seen glimmers of what happens when abortion bans go into effect. Case in point, more infants died after Roe V. Wade was overturned simply because women couldn’t access abortions for fetuses that had little chance at survival. When Texas banned abortions in early pregnancy, infant and newborn deaths increased by 13%. Therefore, rather than terminating nonviable or risky pregnancies, women in Texas had to carry babies they knew would not survive outside the womb, only to watch those babies die after birth.

Either way, trimester abortions are not as common as Republicans would like us to believe. In reality, less than 1% of abortions happen after 21 weeks of pregnancy, most commonly due to a health concern like a fetal abnormality or a risk to the mother’s life. Overwhelmingly, most abortions (93%) take place in the first trimester.

A pattern of misinformation

While the “post-abortion” execution lie’s continuous circulation is odd, it’s not the first time Republicans have leaned into misinformation about abortion. Lies about “partial-birth abortion,” which is not a medical term but a political one coined by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), being rampant have been repeated in the same way. “Partial birth abortion” describes a D&X procedure—once a medical technique for terminating a pregnancy after 21 weeks—and has been illegal since 2003.

Trump has also repeatedly said that legal abortion means that women can and will have them at any time during a pregnancy. That claim has seemed to lead to an uptick in discussions around whether women who have abortions should be treated as murderers, something Trump has publicly supported. The former President has routinely pitched prosecuting women for having abortions.