Resurfaced Buttigieg Video on Late-Term Abortion Proves Prescient

In a resurfaced clip from a 2019 Fox News town hall, gay former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg absolutely destroyed Chris Wallace on the issues of women's health and abortion. Buttigieg was asked by Fox News host Chris Wallace about his support for "late-term abortions," and not only pointed out the statistical ridiculousness of such a question, but the moral absurdity of it as well.

"I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line, that we've gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line," Buttigieg told Wallace and an audience of potential voters in the town hall from May 2019, when Buttigieg was still running for president. "And I trust women to draw the line when it's their own health," he concluded.

After Buttigieg defended a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, Wallace returned with an accusation. "So just to be clear," he asked Buttigieg, "you're saying you would be OK with a woman, well into the third trimester, deciding to abort her pregnancy?"

At first Buttigieg dismissed Wallace's hypothetical, but Wallace countered by saying "it's not hypothetical, there are 6,000 women a year who get abortions in the third trimester." In a classic Fox News move, the number is a bit misleading, and Mayor Pete didn't miss a single beat in calling that out. "That's right," he told Wallace, "representing less than 1 percent of cases."

Buttigieg asked Wallace to put himself in the shoes of a person seeking such an abortion. "If it's that late in your pregnancy, then almost by definition, you've been expecting to carry it to term," he said. "We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name, women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother or viability of the pregnancy, that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice." Each of Buttigieg's answers was followed by applause from the audience.

The abortion clip is resurfacing as confirmation hearings for anti-choice judge Amy Coney Barrett began in Washington today. So-called late-term abortions are a major talking point for both Fox News and the Donald Trump reelection campaign, who try to convince voters that the phrase means doctors killing living infants, rather than the difficult health care decision it is.

Buttigieg has been on fire lately stumping for the Biden-Harris ticket. Before the vice-presidential debate, he played the role of VP Mike Pence in Kamala Harris's debate practices. He then made a famous appearance on Fox News blasting Pence for his hypocrisy in calling himself a Christian while defending Trump. He's since returned to Fox News, again calling out Trump's failure to lead, failure to contain the coronavirus, and failure to even show up for debates since his COVID diagnosis.

"It's too bad. I don't know why the president's afraid to debate," he said on his latest Fox News appearance. "All us have had to get used to a virtual format." He later added, "Of course, the only reason we're here in the first place is that the president is still contagious with a deadly disease."