Fox News host Shannon Bream pressed Ohio Senator JD Vance on Sunday about the Republican presidential ticket’s stance on abortion, an issue a new poll found to be the most important for young female voters this election.
A KFF survey of 678 female voters, conducted between September 12 and October 1, found that abortion is the top issue for young voters 18 to 29 years old, with 39 percent citing it as their primary concern. The poll shows a significant increase in prioritization, up from about 20 percent in the same survey conducted last spring.
Bream opened the conversation on Fox News Sunday about abortion by playing a 2022 clip of Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, speaking during a debate for Ohio’s open U.S. Senate seat. The video segment shows the moderator asking if Vance, “Would vote for [Senator] Lindsey Graham’s 15-week ban?” Graham’s proposed legislation would impose a 15-week ban on abortion nationwide.
In the debate, Vance responded, “I think it’s totally reasonable to say, you cannot abort a baby, especially for elective reasons, after 15 weeks of gestation. No civilized country allows it.”
Bream followed-up the video clip by asking, “If you’re talking about 15 to 20 week ban nationally, that is going to cut off access to a lot of people who have greater access in a number of different states now. Would you vote for something that is a 15 to 20 week ban at the national level?”
Vance replied, “I do think it’s reasonable to say at a certain level late-term abortions are barbaric if they’re done for elective reasons, of course you have to have the exceptions.”
He then called out Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, over their abortion stance, claiming, “They want late term abortions, funded by taxpayers, forced on Christian hospitals and that’s not something that Donald Trump and I like.”
Harris, meanwhile, has said she would codify reproductive rights federally if elected.
Bream interjected, “When you talk about a 15- or 20-week ban, people will say that sounds like a national ban—we’re just playing with semantics here.”
“It’s not Shannon,” Vance responded, going on to note that “[former] President Trump…has explicitly said that he would not support a national abortion ban. He has said that he thinks this issue should be left to the states.”
Newsweek reached out to Vance’s campaign for additional comment via email on Sunday.
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The Republican presidential ticket’s stance on abortion has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, especially relating to the vice-presidential debate, where Vance falsely said that he had never supported a national abortion ban—a claim contradicted by the 2022 video.
Trump, who was live reacting to the debate on Truth Social, his social media platform, posted on October 1, “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it.” The post came nearly a month after the former president did not say whether he would veto a national ban during the presidential debate against Harris.
In an unexpected move, former first lady Melania Trump entered the national abortion debate by expressing her support for abortion rights in her memoir.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right to individual liberty grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she wrote in Melania.
Vance told Bream on Sunday that the Republican presidential ticket is “sick of the nationalized culture war on this topic, and I think the best way is to return it to the voters in the states.”
Vance’s Fox News Sunday appearance comes a week after Walz was on the program, where he was pressed on his abortion stance and legislative record as governor of Minnesota, which became the first state to codify abortion protections into law after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Bream asked Walz about the Minnesota law, which does not explicitly note term limits on abortion, and whether he believes Democrats should advocate for national access to abortion at any term.
“Look, the vice president and I have been clear, the restoration of Roe v. Wade is what we’re asking for,” Walz replied.
