Republicans keep lying about ‘post-birth’ abortions and ‘abortion up until birth.’ Here’s the reality.

For decades, Republicans have spread misinformation — and outright lies — about abortions later in pregnancy, while also spreading conspiracy theories about nonexistent “post-birth” abortions. Here, we separate fact from fiction.

Imagine being a mother to a newborn — so new that you just finished giving birth — and you learn upon delivering your baby that they are fatally ill and have no chance of survival.

Now imagine the horrifying choice that presents you with: would you ask doctors to do everything they could to try and extend your baby’s life by a few minutes, maybe a few hours, even if it meant performing invasive procedures, causing them pain, and ultimately failing to save them? Or would you choose the other option: palliative care and spending those final precious moments with your baby, in calm and peaceful surroundings?

This traumatizing experience is one that many families face each year, and even though some choose the latter, those sorts of decisions are the subject of a massive misinformation and conspiracy campaign led by Donald Trump and anti-abortion conservatives.

Trump and other Republicans in recent years have repeatedly described these situations as “post-birth” abortions and accused Democrats and reproductive rights advocates of supporting “post-birth” abortions. 

Most recently, Trump attacked his presumptive opponent in the November presidential election, Kamala Harris, last week, claiming she supported the “execution” of babies. 

“She wants abortions in the eighth and ninth month of pregnancy. That’s fine with her. Right up until birth, and even after birth. The execution of a baby, because that’s not abortion, that’s the execution of a baby,” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina.

That, to be clear, is false. Neither Harris nor any other Democrat supports the “execution of a baby,” which is illegal in every single state in the country. 

This week, Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, repeated Trump’s lies about “post-birth” abortions.

“Kamala Harris and the Democrats are radically out of touch with the majority of Americans in their support for abortion up until birth and even after birth, and forcing taxpayers to fund it,” Leavitt told the Detroit News.

These nonsensical claims are part of a broader offensive from Republicans and anti-abortion activists that seeks to paint abortions later in pregnancy — which are an extreme minority of all abortions and usually involve fatal fetal anomalies or emergencies that pose a threat to the pregnant woman’s life — as being the most common form of abortions. 

They are not. 

But the right’s aggressive and frequent attacks on “post-birth” abortions and “late-term” abortions have made them taboo to discuss, creating a vacuum for such misinformation and conspiracies to thrive.

It’s time we fixed that. 

Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about “later abortions,” the term preferred by reproductive rights advocates. 

What is a later abortion?

There is currently no clear, widely-accepted definition of what a “later abortion” technically is.  

According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 92.7% of all abortions take place by the 13th week of pregnancy. Abortions performed after the 20th week of pregnancy represent a small percentage of the total number of all procedures performed, and they become increasingly more rare as the weeks go on.

The Kaiser Family Foundation notes that only 1% of abortions in the US occur at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy. 

Who Not When, the public facing education and resource site affiliated with Patient Forward, an organization dedicated to securing access to abortion throughout pregnancy, notes that different groups may define or understand “later” based on their perspective. 

From an abortion seeker’s perspective, what is considered “later” depends on where she lives, how far along she is, and whether she’s able to access the care she needs. From a clinical and legal perspective, how far along an abortion seeker is can affect how the procedure is performed, and whether it’s legal to do so in a given area. 

Who seeks abortions later in pregnancy, and why?

Many people seeking abortions in the US do so because of economic insecurity, with a majority being poor or low income, and without health insurance that covers abortion care, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 

Due to the many barriers in place to accessing abortion care—such as outright bans, 24-hour waiting period laws, mandatory ultrasounds, and the lack of providers in entire parts of certain states—several studies have found that those who seek abortion later in pregnancy are disproportionately people of color, younger people, and those that are low income and are less educated. In other words: people with the fewest financial resources. 

Even though those who seek abortions later in pregnancy do so for many of the same reasons those who have them earlier do, they’re not able to access them due to the barriers and other factors such as lack of child care, the inability to take off work or travel far distances, and more. 

These types of delays have been cited as some of the reasons why people have abortions later in pregnancy: abortion seekers simply could not access care before the end of their first trimester. 

Later abortion care is also generally pretty expensive, and this may delay an abortion seeker’s procedure as well, as they seek to gather funds to cover the cost of care.

According to the National Library of Medicine, “out-of-pocket costs for abortion care are substantial for many women” but “especially at later gestations.” This is largely due to significant gaps in public and private insurance coverage for abortion.

Erika Christensen, co-director of Patient Forward, says that patients receiving new information regarding their pregnancies is another major reason why some people seek abortion care later in pregnancy. 

“This could be a health threat to the person or to their fetus,” she said. “It could be an unforeseen life emergency, like the death of a partner, or the loss of a home.” 

This happened to Christensen herself, who had an abortion when she was 32 weeks pregnant in 2016, after an already “very-complicated pregnancy” health-wise. After consulting with her doctor, she decided terminating the pregnancy was the safest option. 

Christensen also said that many people seeking later abortion care simply do not know that they are pregnant until later in their pregnancy. 

“For the very obvious cultural and biological reasons that women tend to downplay their pain, particularly if it’s related to menstruation or reproduction…they might downplay or not recognize pregnancy symptoms,” she said. 

Between 14% to 25% of women of childbearing age also have irregular periods, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Because of this, these women might not pay much mind to a missed period. 

People with certain health conditions, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, also have extremely unpredictable menstrual cycles.

“Because skipping periods is normal for them, they may not realize they’re pregnant if they miss their period,” the Cleveland Clinic states. 

Conservatives weaponize reproductive care

Despite the nuances surrounding later abortions, politicians such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott have spread misleading and downright false information about the issue and Democrats’ stances on it. 

Last year, during one of the Republican presidential debates, DeSantis and Scott said that Democrats would like to permit abortions up until birth, even though nearly every state, including Democratic-led ones, restrict abortion based on the gestational age, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 

DeSantis also told CNN last year that “some liberal states” allow “post-birth abortions”—a blatant lie accusing Democrats of allowing infanticide, which is, again, illegal in all 50 states. 

This hasn’t stopped the claim from continuing to persist in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have spent years trying to pass legislation that would regulate babies that are “born alive” after an abortion.

Pence and Scott also said they would support a 15-week federal abortion ban when they were on the campaign trail.

Pence said that the idea was “supported by 70% of the American people” and suggested that a 15-week federal ban was reasonable because abortion should be banned after “a baby is capable of feeling pain.” Both of these claims are misleading, if not totally false. 

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, fetal pain is not “structurally possible until about 24-25 weeks gestation,” and even then, the fetus cannot be conscious of pain “until the third trimester at the earliest.” 

Danika Severino Wynn, vice president of Care & Access at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that spreading misinformation about abortion is the goal of politicians like DeSantis, Scott, and Pence. 

This is also why the phrase “late-term abortion” has been denounced by organizations such as Planned Parenthood and Patient Forward in favor of “later abortion” and “abortion later in pregnancy”—Republicans have vilified it. 

“There was such a void about abortion later in pregnancy from the pro-choice movement, (anti-abortion activists) filled it, and they called it something,” Christensen said. 

“Late-term abortion is a made-up term that is used to further stigmatize ending a pregnancy,” Severino Wynn added. “It seems that they (anti-abortion activists and politicians) would like to use the term…as a means of scaring folks off from supporting people’s right to bodily autonomy and choice. If you frame abortion as a horrific procedure where people can have an abortion at the time of birth…it is a lot more challenging for folks to feel comfortable supporting it.”

Americans overwhelmingly support abortion access

Public opinion polls consistently show that the majority of Americans support access to safe and legal abortion care, and new research from PerryUndem, a non-partisan public opinion research firm, not only found that Americans increasingly support abortion throughout pregnancy, but that support for the procedure has only grown since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. 

When voters are asked whether they think abortion should be regulated by the government or a decision made between an individual and their doctor, 80% of them choose the latter, also according to the PerryUndem research. 

When researchers asked voters whether abortion should be legal in certain trimesters, 71% said it should be legal in the third trimester. But, they didn’t stop there. They specifically asked the voters who said abortion should be regulated in the third trimester several follow-up questions in order to get a better view of their beliefs.

When asked whether abortion should be regulated by law or left up to an individual and their doctor, 40% of them said it should not be regulated by law. Forty percent also said that abortion should be available throughout pregnancy due to “complex circumstances.” Additionally, 78% agreed that there are circumstances when a person might need an abortion later in pregnancy, and 80% agreed that abortion laws cannot account for every situation where an abortion might be needed.

Fifty-eight percent of these voters also agreed that people should be able to make their own health care decisions throughout the duration of their pregnancies without government interference. And finally, when these voters were asked who should make a decision about abortion, most said doctors or other medical professionals. Only 16% responded that a state legislature or a state Supreme Court should have a say in the matter. 

“I never thought the government should be involved in medical decisions to begin with,” a respondent told researchers. “But [the overturning of Roe] just pushed it over the edge that the government not only doesn’t understand science, but doesn’t care about private and personal decisions, let alone the people involved in that.” 

Taking all the data and respondents’ answers into account, PerryUndem researchers estimate that the number of Americans who think abortion should be legal until the third trimester may actually be closer to 56%—a majority. 

Removing barriers in abortion care

Both Severino Wynn and Christensen agree that education is crucial for fighting the spread of abortion-related misinformation. 

They both recommend their organizations’ websites, which have information for abortion seekers, as well as for people seeking sexual and reproductive health care broadly.

“That [the website] is one of the main ways our affiliates throughout the country offer education programs in many of their health centers,” Severino Wynn said. “We make sure that we utilize things like social media to try to push evidence-informed information to combat the misinformation out there.” 

Who Not When was born out of a lack of information regarding later abortion care. 

When faced with having to undergo an abortion later in pregnancy, Christensen and her husband really struggled to find good information online.

“The reason we created Who Not When was to be able to offer the best, most accurate information that is available and to put it somewhere that anybody could find it and read it and understand it,” she said. “We work really hard to make all of our information accessible.” 

Both Severino Wynn and Christensen also agree that removing barriers to reproductive care is essential to destigmatizing abortions later in pregnancy.

The Biden-Harris administration has taken several steps to remove barriers to reproductive care, especially in light of Roe v. Wade’s reversal. 

In March, President Biden signed an executive order to expand the federal government’s research into women’s health, an action that the White House described as the “most comprehensive” action ever taken by a president on the matter. 

The order directs federal agencies to ensure that they are using federal funds to research diseases and health conditions that disproportionately affect women—or only affect women—such as fibroids, menopause, arthritis and heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. The order also calls on Congress to pass a plan to invest $12 billion into creating a new fund for women’s health research at the NIH. 

By expanding research into women’s health, experts can determine remaining barriers to reproductive care, which is the first step in eliminating them.  

Continued right-wing threats to reproductive care

Despite these efforts, removing barriers to abortion care might become all the more complicated should Trump be elected in November. Later abortion care would become more complicated as well. 

Since the repeal of Roe, Republicans have repeatedly sought to pass a nationwide abortion ban and to restrict access to abortion care. Earlier this year, Trump himself suggested he might back a 15-week nationwide abortion ban, meaning that no later abortions would be legal.  

A group of Trump-aligned conservative organizations and activists have also crafted an expansive blueprint that lays out in detail how they intend to leverage virtually every arm, tool, and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access, including by banning and criminalizing access to abortion medication. That plan—which is more than 900 pages long—includes ways to make abortion inaccessible without actually passing any new laws at all.

Project 2025, as the plan has been called, also calls for the US Department of Justice to start enforcing the Comstock Act of 1873. The 150-year-old law bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion,” which could include medical instruments. This could, in effect, serve as a backdoor way to ban abortion across the country.

In stark contrast to Trump’s proposed plans, if Kamala Harris were to win in November and if Democrats won control of the House and Senate, it could lead to the restoration of Roe.

During her first week as the likely Democratic nominee for president, Harris focused on abortion rights at three separate campaign events: one in Indianapolis, one in Milwaukee, and one in Massachusetts. 

“We, who believe in reproductive freedom, will stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and not have their government telling them what to do,” Harris said at the Massachusetts fundraiser. “If there are those who dare to take the freedom to make such a fundamental decision for an individual, which is about one’s own body, what other freedoms could be on the table for the taking?”