On October 1, 2024, Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota took to the stage for the Vice Presidential Debate, hosted by CBS News. Heading into the November 5 presidential election, Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have struggled to garner support on issues of abortion access and reproductive rights. Despite his best efforts during the debate, Vance failed to reassure voters of his commitment to families and the right to choose.
The two vice presidential candidates went back and forth for 90 minutes on key issues in the upcoming election, such as immigration, the economy, and the crisis in the Middle East. A major topic was reproductive rights, a concern that many voters have had since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. States can now decide how to regulate abortion, and many of their policies have left millions of Americans without access to reproductive healthcare. Abortion bans have also limited access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments and endangered people who need life-saving abortions—a point that Walz emphasized in the debate.
Walz, who is Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick, has had a winning record when it comes to abortion access; in 2023, the governor signed one of the most protective reproductive rights bills into law in Minnesota. However, many Republicans, including Trump and Vance, have argued that Walz and other Democrats encourage late-term abortions. In the presidential debate in September, Trump falsely claimed that “post-birth abortions” were happening. Republicans have made late-term abortions seem like a prominent issue—when, in fact, only 1 percent of abortions happen beyond 21 weeks of pregnancy.
In the debate, Walz flipped the blame to Donald Trump, reminding viewers that the former president stacked the Supreme Court with judges who seemed predisposed to overturn Roe v. Wade. Walz powerfully told the stories of women across the country who died or were severely harmed because they could not obtain abortions, noting that maternal mortality has increased in states with abortion bans.
In response, JD Vance made a surprising move and called out his own party for not doing enough to support pregnant people. Vance claimed that if elected, he and Trump would make it easier to access IVF and afford maternal healthcare. However, Republican attempts to ban abortion have made this plan impossible. For example, this past February, Alabama temporarily paused IVF treatment after a judge ruled that embryos were considered children. If abortion bans, such as the highly restrictive ban in Alabama, declare that life begins at conception, the destruction of embryos may be prohibited and IVF may be threatened.
Later in the debate, Vance talked about lowering the cost of childcare to support families. Yet, until very recently, Republicans have historically not supported federal spending on childcare support programs. Even now, as childcare is becoming a more bipartisan issue, most initiatives are Democrat-led. Furthermore, Vance argued that supporting paid leave and subsidizing child care promotes choice for families. While true, this sentiment downplays the lack of choice that Republican-backed abortion bans have inflicted on millions of Americans. This separation of childcare, maternal healthcare, and abortion rights disregards the multifaceted nature of reproductive justice. Just as access to abortion care is a pillar of reproductive freedom, so too is the right to raise children in a safe and comfortable environment. To separate childcare from the broader reproductive freedoms that Republicans have repealed is to falsely deny that the issues are related.
JD Vance noted that many Americans do not trust Republicans on the issue of reproductive rights; he clearly attempted to distance himself from that image in the October debate. However, this attempt was half-hearted and misaligned with policies that Republicans, including Vance, have supported. A second Trump presidency would have lasting implications on reproductive rights, and nothing JD Vance said in the debate proved otherwise.