Power

Later Abortion Care Takes Center Stage in Critical U.S. Senate Race

“Well, I do stand for the right of women to make incredibly difficult decisions that are medically complex, privately, with her family, with her doctor, and in conversation with her god,” said Katie McGinty, the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race, after her Republican opponent outlined a misleading description of later abortion care.

Democrat Katie McGinty told the story of a southwestern Pennsylvania couple’s “excruciating” decision to opt for a later abortion during Monday night’s final debate against incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in the race for the U.S. Senate. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Democrat Katie McGinty told the story of a southwestern Pennsylvania couple’s “excruciating” decision to opt for a later abortion during Monday night’s final debate with incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in the race for the U.S. Senate.

“Well, I do stand for the right of women to make incredibly difficult decisions that are medically complex, privately, with her family, with her doctor, and in conversation with her god,” McGinty told moderator Jim Gardner after her opponent outlined a misleading description of what he seemed to think a later abortion entails. 

McGinty said that though Toomey “paints gruesome pictures” of later abortion care, a constituent recently told her about his family’s experience with the procedure.

“Let me just say, I got a call just a couple of weeks ago from a gentleman from southwestern Pennsylvania,” she said. “That gentleman shared a story that just underscores for me—this is a decision for parents, for families, not for politicians.”

“The room was painted, the baby furniture was purchased,” McGinty said. “The teddy bears were purchased, and it was very late in his wife’s pregnancy when a terrible condition with the baby was understood and they had to make an excruciating decision to terminate that pregnancy. So no, this should not be about politics.”

The Democrat criticized what she called Toomey’s “out of the mainstream” views on abortion rights, suggesting that both the senator and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump have said “women or their doctors should be jailed for having to make these excruciating decisions.”

That claim has been at the center of several campaign ads criticizing Toomey for having made comments that seemingly align him with Trump’s March statement that he would punish people who had an abortion should the procedure become illegal. Trump backtracked on that suggestion, pivoting to say that doctors—not abortion patients—should be punished, but has shifted his position on the matter several times.

Though fact checkers have found no evidence that Toomey says people should be punished for receiving abortion care, in a 2009 appearance on MSNBC, the Republican repeatedly asserted that doctors should be punished for providing abortion care if a ban was put in place.

“I would support legislation in Pennsylvania that would ban abortion, and I would suggest we have penalties for doctors who perform them if we were able to pass that law,” Toomey said.

When asked by host Chris Matthews if he “would put people in jail for performing abortions,” Toomey replied that “at some point doctors performing abortions I think would be subject to that sort of penalty.”

Toomey co-sponsored the Senate’s scientifically dubious “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” a 20-week abortion ban that would have threatened physicians in violation of the legislation with fines and prison time.

McGinty voiced her support for later abortion care last week in an interview with PennLive.

“If an excruciating decision like that needs to be made late in a pregnancy, it’s almost certainly because the situation is very complex, great and difficult, and I believe that’s the province for women, their families, and people in this democracy who are trying to have some privacy in the most intimate parts of their life,” she said. “People talk about limited government. This is where, indeed, it needs to be about the privacy, the conscience, the faith, the medical advice of a person in this free country.”

The race between McGinty and Toomey is one of a handful of tight U.S. Senate races that could determine which party controls the chamber. The race has become a hotbed for political spending from outside groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets, which investigates money in politics.

Reproductive rights groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Votes have invested in the race between Toomey and McGinty.