VP Debate Recap: “Rebuilding Trust” on Abortion Means Apologizing for Being Pro-Life

*This is an AI generated transcript, and may contain errors*

Mark Harrington (00:00):

Friends, did you watch The Love Fest between JD Vance and Tim Walsh last night on the vice presidential debate? I did, and I can tell you one thing, there was no love fest for the unborn. We’re going to talk about it today. Thanks for joining me on Activist Radio, Mark Harrington here. Friends, if you want to follow us, you can go to all the popular podcasting platforms and subscribe, and if you would just leave a five star review, share the program and let your friends and others know about it. We’re going to be talking about the vice presidential debate. It’s probably going to be the last debate of this election cycle. It sounds like it. Anyway, between JD Vance and Tim Waltz, and as I said at the intro, it was definitely a love fest. People said, oh, they were civil to one another. You could think these people would go out and have a beer afterwards.

(01:03):

That’s how friendly they were to one another. Very different than the Donald Trump, Kamala Harris debate that we had several weeks ago. Frankly, I like a little more spirited debate than what we saw last night. It was good on policy. I think JD Vance won. I think Tim Walls would be a great grandfather or father I’m sure, and probably somebody you want to go out and have a beer with, but he’d be a lousy vice president for sure. But the one thing we want to talk about, of course, which is the premier issue facing America, and that is the defense of the most innocent among us that is the unborn. The question came up about a third way through the debate, and it starts out by asking about, so-called reproductive healthcare. Go ahead and play the first clip

Video (01:52):

Now to the issue of reproductive rights.

Mark Harrington (01:56):

This isn’t reproductive rights, it’s abortion killing reproductive rights. That’s a euphemism. Go ahead.

Video (02:03):

After Roe versus Wade was overturned, you signed a bill into law that made Minnesota one of the least restrictive states in the nation when it,

Mark Harrington (02:12):

Yeah, abortion up to birth in Minnesota ahead

Video (02:15):

Comes to abortion. Former President Trump said in the last debate that you believe abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. Yes or no? Is that what you support? I’ll give you two minutes.

Video (02:28):

That’s not what the bill says, but look, this issue is what’s on everyone’s mind. Donald Trump put this all into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe versus Wade. 52 years. Praise

Mark Harrington (02:43):

God for him. Praise God for Donald Trump. He helped to overturn Roe versus Wade. Hooray. We’re for that. Go ahead.

Video (02:52):

And then he tells us, oh, we send it to the states. It’s a beautiful thing.

Mark Harrington (02:56):

Exactly.

Video (02:57):

Amanda Zuki would disagree you on. It’s a beautiful thing. A young bride in Texas waiting for their child at 18 weeks, she has a complication, a tear in the membrane. She needs to go in. The medical care at that point needs to be decided by the doctor

Mark Harrington (03:12):

There. Abortion is not medical care. It’s not healthcare. It’s not reproductive healthcare. It’s killing it’s dismembering. Decapitation and disempowering of an innocent unborn child. Let’s get that right. Go ahead.

Video (03:30):

An abortion. But in Texas, that would’ve put them in legal jeopardy. She went home, got sepsis, nearly dies, and now she may have difficulty having children or in Kentucky.

Mark Harrington (03:40):

Yeah, there abortion’s not safe. It’s just not safe for women. It’s certainly not safe for the baby who’s being killed. Go ahead.

Video (03:50):

Well, a 12-year-old child raped and impregnated by her stepfather. Horrible

Mark Harrington (03:55):

Story.

Video (03:56):

Horrific. Now, when God asked about that, Senator Vance said, two wrongs don’t make a right. There is no right in this. So in Minnesota what we did was restore Roe versus Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their healthcare,

Mark Harrington (04:11):

But again, again, we put women in charge of their healthcare. Again, let’s be clear here, we put women in charge of killing their children. That’s what they did in Minnesota, and abortion is legal for all intents and purposes up to the very moment of birth in that’s state and in the law that he’s talking about. It leaves it up to the doctor and the mother to decide if they are going to provide resuscitation of a baby who is born due to a failed abortion attempt. Go ahead.

Video (04:51):

If you don’t know Amanda or a Hadley, you soon will their project. 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. Okay,

Mark Harrington (05:00):

There. How many times does Donald Trump need to say that he has nothing to do with Project 2025? He hasn’t even read it. They make it out to be his platform like he wrote it himself. They continue to lie about this. I happen to believe in a lot of what’s in Project 2025 to be the honest, there’s no pregnancy registry like they’re talking about here, like the hand man’s tale, the handmaiden’s tail or something like that. I mean on this is just absolutely fear mongering. Go ahead.

Video (05:36):

Difficult if not impossible to get contraception and limit that

Mark Harrington (05:40):

Wrong there. Nobody’s trying to ban contraception. Please go

Video (05:46):

Ahead, Nate. Access to infertility treatments

Mark Harrington (05:49):

Not true either. There’s not a single attempt in the United States of America to ban fertility treatments. There has been discussion about IVF as to whether it’s moral or not, and as I’ve said before, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that IVF violated the law that was on the books there, and then quickly the legislature there fixed it. There is no threat to IVF. In fact, unfortunately, JD Vance and Donald Trump say they’re going to fund it.

Video (06:19):

Go ahead. For so many of you out there listening, me included, infertility treatments are why I have a child. That’s nobody else’s business, but those things are being proposed. It’s

Mark Harrington (06:30):

Not true. They’re not being proposed. Listen, why doesn’t JD Vance just point to and ask where are people trying to ban IVF? There’s not a single effort in the United States, whether it’s in Congress or any state legislature that’s trying to do that. Go ahead.

Video (06:49):

It says, well, the states will decide what’s right for Texas. Might not be right for Washington. That’s not how this works. This is basic human right. We have seen Stop there.

Mark Harrington (06:59):

Stop there. Now, I agree with him here that it shouldn’t be a state’s rights issue. Abortion should not be up to a vote, whether it be a popular vote, direct democracy like these amendments or through the state legislature. This is not how it should be handled, but for better or for worse, and right now, probably for worse, the states are deciding they are voting, and if you’re pro-choice, why wouldn’t you want it up for a vote? He’s talking about this is a basic human right. He’s talking about the women should have the basic human right to healthcare, meaning abortion. What about the basic human life, human right of the unborn, Tim, that should not be put up to the states and it should not be determined by geography as he says. Go ahead.

Video (07:49):

Maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas outpacing many other countries in the world. This is about healthcare In Minnesota, we are ranked first in healthcare for a reason. We trust women. We trust doctors.

Video (08:02):

Senator,

Mark Harrington (08:02):

You know what I always wonder? We say let’s trust women when it comes to abortion. How about we just start trusting men when it comes to rape? Hey, just leave it up to them. Reason why that doesn’t make any sense to anybody because we know there’s a victim in rape, and when we think about abortion, we don’t think there’s a victim because the victim isn’t seen. We can’t hear from them. They don’t have a voice or a vote. Go ahead,

Video (08:28):

Respond to the governor’s claim. Will you create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency?

Mark Harrington (08:33):

This is just the kind of BS question that they throw at the conservatives here, JD Donald Trump, that they’ll never ask a hard question at Tim Wal. Go ahead.

Video (08:45):

Certainly we won’t, and I want to talk about this issue. I know a lot of Americans care about, and I know a lot of Americans don’t agree with everything that I’ve ever said on this topic, and I grew up in a working class family in a neighborhood where I knew a lot of young women who had unplanned pregnancies and decided to terminate those pregnancies because they didn’t have.

Mark Harrington (09:05):

Why is JD Vance using pro-choice terminology? Why? If this guy is pro-life, why does he call terminate a pregnancy? That’s not what this is. You know what terminates a pregnancy? The birth of the baby jd. That’s what terminates it. Not the killing of the child. That’s murder. I mean, I just don’t get it. This guy’s supposedly be very pro-life, yet he speaks like he’s pro-choice makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Go ahead.

Video (09:36):

They feel like they didn’t have any other options. One of them is actually very dear to me.

Mark Harrington (09:41):

They do have options and they know they do. They can parent the child, which of course is difficult, especially if you’re a single mom and they can place the child for adoption. The reason when they choose abortion because they think it’s the lesser of the three options, it’s the easiest of the three because they’ve never seen an abortion. They don’t understand that it’s not just harmful to them, but it’s harmful to the baby. Go ahead

Video (10:07):

And I know she’s watching tonight, and I love you, and she told me something a couple years ago that she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would’ve destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.

Mark Harrington (10:19):

I

Video (10:19):

Think

Mark Harrington (10:21):

This is just nauseating. It’s almost like he’s telling these stories like Tim Walls, these sob stories, these terrible stories. Why? Let’s talk about the child and let’s talk about women doing hard things ahead.

Video (10:35):

Take from that. As a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party? We’ve got to do so much better of a job.

Mark Harrington (10:50):

I just dunno. The Republican party, he says, we proudly want to protect innocent life in this country. Really? Do you? Then why did you strip it? Strip any references to protecting the unborn from the GOP platform. Why is it that Donald Trump is caving left and right on abortion, not even bringing up the unborn, not talking about what abortion does to the unborn. If that’s the case, then why aren’t you speaking about it ahead? Continue back a little bit because it’s important what he says here ahead.

Video (11:23):

Well, is it my party? We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us and I think that things

Mark Harrington (11:34):

Now, why is it that JD Vance has this perception that the Republican party cannot be trusted on abortion? Why is that? Because he’s bought in to the lies in the propaganda to the left in the pro-abortion lobby that says they are, that is the Republican party, are the extremists, not the Democrats who want to kill babies even all the way up to birth. We’re talking about five, six, seven month old babies. Babies that are 6, 7, 8 pounds. They’re the extremists, not the Republicans, but they’re caving on this because they’re incapable of articulating a pro-life message and defending the unborn as they should, so he’s talking about losing their trust. You don’t gain their trust by caving in on the greatest moral issue of our day. You stand, you show courage and determination in the face of opposition and persecution. That’s how you regain their trust. Go ahead.

Video (12:40):

More options. Now, of course, Donald Trump has been very clear that on the abortion policy specifically,

Mark Harrington (12:46):

He has not been clear. He is been all over the map. The guy’s making it up as he goes. Go ahead.

Video (12:51):

A big country and it’s diverse and California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona and the proper way to handle this as messy as democracy sometimes is to let voters make these decisions. Let the individual states make their abortion policy, and I think that’s what makes the most sense in a very big,

Mark Harrington (13:12):

Okay, stop here. Stop here. Here’s the thing. Again, it’s not the proper way to go about this because the federal government now does not have a position, so to speak on abortion because Roe v. Wade was overturned that it does go to the legislature. I understand that, but I’ve said a million times that the federal government is going to have to solve this. That means by either passing a law that protects the unborn or by the Supreme Court ruling that the 14th Amendment protects the unborn as persons as we understand it in the 14th Amendment, or there is going to be a constitutional amendment to fix it all. It’s got to be one or all of those things. The federal government’s going to have to weigh in on this. It weighed in on slavery. It’s going to have to weigh in on abortion. We can’t just leave it up to the states to decide because the unborn deserve equal protection. Go ahead.

Video (14:08):

Very messy and divided country.

Video (14:10):

Governor, would you like to respond?

Mark Harrington (14:12):

Stop there. Just because it’s a divided country doesn’t mean that we just throw up our hands and bend the knee to the pro-abortion lobby. That’s just not how this works. JD Vance and Donald Trump need to show leadership here. I understand politically they think that they need to move towards the middle, if you will, or towards the abortion industry in order to gain votes. I get that. I think it’s a bad bargain. I think it’s a mistake. I don’t think they’re going to gain any votes because those people don’t trust them to begin with, but that’s what they’re doing and I don’t like it, but that’s what they’re doing, but that is not the answer and it will not solve the problem. They want to brush it under the what rug. They’re concerned that this culture war is going to continue and this will somehow solve it. It’s not going to go ahead.

Video (15:04):

Fact of the matter is how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right

Mark Harrington (15:12):

Life here, he says your life and your rights. What about the life of the rights of the unborn? Go ahead

Video (15:19):

Is determined on geography. There’s a very real chance had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. That’s why the restoration of Roe v. Wade, when you listen to Vice President Harris,

Mark Harrington (15:32):

There again, they do not want to restore Roe v. Wade. They want to go beyond what Roe v. Wade allowed. Go ahead.

Video (15:41):

You are making the United States the most barbaric pro-abortion regime anywhere in the entire world. My question is why have you changed your position?

Video (15:50):

Well, Nora, first of all, I never supported a national ban. I did during when I was running for Senate in 2022. Talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial birth abortion ban in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody’s trying to get rid of that or at least

Mark Harrington (16:06):

Partial birth abortion ban is useless. You know why? Because they don’t kill ’em that way. They don’t kill the child as the child’s being born alive. What they do is insert a needle that kills the baby by inducing a heart attack using digoxin and delivers the baby dead. That’s how they do late term abortions. They don’t use the partial birth abortion method because methods don’t matter. They’ll just figure out another way to kill. So even though that’s on the books, nobody’s killing children that way because they just do it a different way. Go ahead,

Video (16:46):

Governor, your response.

Video (16:47):

I’m going to respond on the pro-abortion piece of that. No, we’re not.

Mark Harrington (16:54):

This is what people get away with. If you take away protections for African-Americans, guess what? They’re going to die. They’re going to get lynched. That is pro lynching. Removing protections means you are not just leaving it up to people to decide. No, no, no. Anytime you remove legal protections, guess what happens? People kill those individuals. So it is pro-abortion to remove any legal restraints on protecting the unborn. It just is. Go ahead.

Video (17:36):

Someone like Amber Thurman drive 600 miles to try and get healthcare Senator.

Mark Harrington (17:40):

If you stop there there, the Amber Thurman story is going to be used by these people up until election day. We’ve it here. There’s no mention at all, even JD Vance who could have brought up and clarified that story by saying Amber Thurman did not die because she didn’t get the care she needed. She died because she had an abortion, and the twins who were killed by the abortion were not expelled by the abortion drug. So the abortion drug killed her, not the lack of care. Now, should they have performed a DNC immediately? Yes, and they didn’t. So there’s some malpractice there, but if it weren’t for the fact that Amber Thurman was trying to get an abortion and the abortion was incomplete, she would be alive today. Go ahead,

Video (18:38):

Senator. It may respond to that. First of all, governor, I agree with you. Amber Thurman should still be alive and there are a lot of people who should still be

Mark Harrington (18:44):

Alive. Hey, hey, she should be alive and her baby should be alive. Let’s not forget about them.

Video (18:51):

Go ahead. That she was, and maybe you’re free to disagree with me on this and explain this to me, but as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late term abortion. That is, I think, whether true, whether you’re pro-choice or pro, he

Mark Harrington (19:16):

Says it’s not true, but he doesn’t give any facts to back it up. Keep going.

Video (19:20):

That is fundamentally barbaric, and that’s why I use that word, Nora, is because some of what we’ve seen, do you want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will because Kamala Harris supported suing Catholic nuns? Yes, they did. To their freedom of conscience. That’s right. We can be a big and diverse country where we respect people’s freedom of conscience and make the country more pro baby and pro-family. But please,

Video (19:42):

Yes, governor, please respond.

Video (19:43):

Look,

Video (19:44):

This is one where there’s always something there. This is a very simple proposition. These are women’s decisions to make about their healthcare decisions and the physicians who know best when they need to do this trying to distort stop there.

Mark Harrington (19:55):

Stop there. Hey, you know what? Just insert not unborn child in this equation, but how about a born child? Should women have the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions meaning to whether their child lives or dies? If the child was born and the answer would be no way, nobody would agree with that, but somehow inside the birth canal, in the womb, everything changes. There’s nothing magical about the birth canal friends, and so this just does not pass the smell test. But JD Vance does not defend the unborn. He basically takes a pro-choice position throughout this entire debate. It’s about time that somebody stands up for the unborn. He can make the case for them, but yet talk about the political nuances that we face in 2024. But it’s awful to see the Democrats and Tim Walls and Kamala Harris, they defend their position to the teeth. They’ll go down fighting to kill babies. The Republicans on the hand, they’ll acquiesce, they’ll backpedal and everything else because they’re so afraid of the pro-abortion lobby. Go ahead and continue on.

Video (21:18):

It was written to try and make a point. That’s not it at all. What was I wrong about Governor? Please tell me what was that wrong is not the way the law is written. Look,

Mark Harrington (21:24):

Really, well, tell us how the law was written. Tim. Don’t just say, oh, you’re wrong. That’s not how it’s written. Tell us how. And to be honest, JD Vance should have known it and read that portion of the law, but he didn’t go ahead.

Video (21:40):

Getting involved, getting against. That’s been misread and it was fact-check at the last debate. Stop

Mark Harrington (21:44):

There. Fact check. By whom do you remember? It was the moderator that said, there’s no law in the state of Minnesota that allows babies to die after a failed abortion. She fact checked Donald Trump. Remember that?

Video (21:59):

Go ahead. But the point on this is, is there’s a continuation of these guys to try and tell women or to get involved. I use this line on this. Just mind your own business on this things work.

Mark Harrington (22:10):

Stop. Hey, Tim, do you think people should mind their own business when children who are born get murdered? How about that? Should we just stand by the sidelines and say, oh, we’ll leave this up to women to decide. No, we would never do that. Why? Because we don’t think the unborn are human, and JD Vance is unwilling to make the case that they are. Go ahead.

Video (22:33):

Roe versus Wade was in place. When we do a restoration of ROE that works best, that doesn’t preclude us from increasing funding for children, it doesn’t increase us from making sure that once that child’s born, like in Minnesota, they get meals, they get early

Mark Harrington (22:48):

Childhood. Stop there, stop there. I need to say something here. We don’t have money problems. We have moral problems. Now, I’m not saying that we should neglect taking care of women and children and if there’s ways to help them financially, even with government assistance, that should be made available. Don’t get me wrong on that, but to make this about money is misdirected. This is a moral issue. Plain and simple. And if we think a murder is wrong and we believe that the unborn are human, then killing the unborn is wrong. Go ahead.

Video (23:26):

They get healthcare. So the hiding behind, we’re going to do all these other things. When you’re not proposing ’em in your budget, Kamala Harris is proposing them. She’s proposing all those things to make life easier for families. I asked a specific question, governor, you gave me a slogan as a response. It’s not the case. It’s not true. That’s not what the

Video (23:42):

Law says.

Mark Harrington (23:43):

Well define the, give us the wording. Give us the language. He didn’t. Go ahead

Video (23:48):

Trump. Gentlemen. There’s a lot to discuss. We have to move on.

Mark Harrington (23:52):

Okay, that’s good enough. I dunno. Friends, that was very frustrating to watch. I’m sorry. Every single one of these questions on these debates, whether it was with Joe Biden and Donald Trump or Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, or in this one, JD Vance and Tim Walls has been frustrating on abortion. And it’s simply because the GOP is running from the issue during the debate to make it worse, like it could get worse. During the debate, when the issue of a federal ban was brought up and asked whether JD Vance would support it, Donald Trump tweeted this, if you are uncertain as to whether he supports a national ban or not, and he is never come out in favor or against up until now. Now it’s clear. And here’s what he says. All in caps. In all caps, he says this, Donald Trump on X, everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban.

(24:48):

That is not true. He is never said it. Now he has under any circumstances, think about that. So Donald Trump wouldn’t sign a 15 week abortion ban. How about a 20 week abortion? Apparently not, and would in fact veto it. So he’s not only saying, I won’t support it. In other words, he won’t get behind it with the bully pulpit, but he would take his pen. Think about this as a so-called pro-life candidate for president. He would take his pen and veto that law. I mean, we are in desperate places right now, politically friends. We are in a political wilderness when the only party that represents so-called the unborn, are throwing them under the bus like they are. He says, I’d veto it because it’s up to the states to decide on the will of their voters, the will of the people. Donald Trump would’ve done well with slavery. I guess he would’ve improved slavery.

(25:49):

He’s on the wrong side of this. Friends, I know we’ve got a binary choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. He got to decide what you’re going to do there. But boy, he doesn’t make it easy, is he? And neither is JD Vance. So I just wanted to go through this today. I wish there was better news, but this is not encouraging to us as pro-life activists. These people are making a political bargain, a political calculation that if they give in on abortion, like this tweet does, that Donald Trump’s going to gain votes. Maybe he will. I don’t think so. I think he’s going to lose some pro-life votes. And he’s also going to tamp down the enthusiasm that many people will have to throw the lever for him, or to go out and canvas and make phone calls and raise money for the guy. It’s hard to get excited when this is his position. So anyway, that is my take on the vice presidential debate last night between JD Vance and Tim Waltz. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America and remember America to bless God.

Outro (27:01):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the culture war.