Former Vice-President Mike Pence said he supports banning abortion even in cases where the pregnancy isn’t viable and doctors determined that the baby has no chance of survival outside the uterus, according to the Associated Press.
“I’m pro-life. I don’t apologize for it,” Pence told AP in an interview. “I just have heard so many stories over the years of courageous women and families who were told that their unborn child would not go to term or would not survive. And then they had a healthy pregnancy and a healthy delivery.”
“I want to always err on the side of life,” Pence added. “I would hold that view in these matters because … I honestly believe that we got this extraordinary opportunity in the country today to restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law.”
Pregnancies that are considered to be nonviable regardless of gestational age include ectopic pregnancies and early pregnancy loss. They can be deadly for the pregnant person, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Medical experts criticized Pence’s comments saying that abortion services can be critical for women facing pregnancy complications.
“One of the things that you cannot understate is the difficulty for a woman to carry a nonviable pregnancy,” Alan Peaceman, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine told The Associated Press.
“It is psychological torture to go out in the world, for people to see your pregnancy — and people will come up to you and want to talk about your pregnancy. And that puts the woman in a terrible position that nobody should be in unless they chose to be in that position,” he added.
Pence strongly opposes abortion and is currently the only GOP presidential candidate who has come out in support of a national ban on abortion after six weeks with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. He has also urged other GOP 2024 candidates to at least support a 15-week nationwide abortion ban.
