Pro-abortion Democratic candidate for president Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, recently mischaracterized and defended inhumane late-term abortions. Buttigieg discussed his opinion on “Morning Joe” last Thursday. During the appearance, “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist noted that Buttigieg has drawn tentative support from some religious conservatives because he has spoken about his faith and the role it plays in his life. Geist said, “They like you. But they get to the point where they look down your resumé and they say life is precious. They talk about the sanctity of life and they can’t get past your support of late-term abortion. What do you say to them?”

Buttigieg gave a lengthy answer in which he claimed abortion was a “personal decision” and that abortion involved “religious” or “metaphysical” questions that are “not knowable in the traditional sense.” But this is untrue, because science demonstrates that life begins at fertilization, preborn babies have a detectable heartbeat as early as six weeks’ gestation, and, therefore, abortion takes a human life.

READ: Why Democratic candidate Cory Booker is wrong about late-term abortion

Buttigieg misleadingly claims that in late-term abortions, there is an “incredibly painful set of decisions in these horrifying medical cases where the mother and/or the child can’t survive.” The reality is that abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother. An abortion in the third-trimester is a high-risk, multi-day procedure, not a response to a medical emergency. A c-section in an emergency situation is far more practical and would seek to save the lives of both mother and child.

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When pressed about the fact that an abortion in the third trimester is ending the life of a viable baby, Buttigieg falsely claimed, “Look, you only get to that stage, that late moment, if you had been planning to bring a pregnancy to term.”

Studies show this is not the case. As previously reported, there is a wide-range of evidence of this fact, including from several pro-abortion sources. A 1988 Guttmacher study found that only 2% of women sought late-term abortions because of a health problem with the baby. A 2013 study published by the Guttmacher Institute stated, “data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” Pro-abortion researcher Diana Greene Foster noted, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service, that abortions for fetal abnormalities “make up a small minority of later abortion.” And in a 2010 paper, Julia Steinberg of the pro-abortion Bixby Center for Global Health wrote, “Research suggests that the overwhelming majority of women having later abortions do so for reasons other than fetal anomaly (Drey et al., 2006; Finer et al., 2005, 2006; Foster et al., 2008).”

Buttigieg’s attempt to defend his support for killing preborn children without restriction does not sit well with the majority of the population who, regardless of political affiliation, are opposed to late-term abortion.

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