Trump baffles with 'after birth execution' comment in rally speech

The president has falsely claimed that doctors kill infants who survive failed abortions

Donald Trump has told supporters at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that pro-choice Democrats want to legalise "after-birth execution" for unwanted children.

He said: "They want to crush religious liberty – they don't want religion – silence religious believers, indoctrinate your children with hateful and vicious lies about our country, subsidise late-term abortion and after-birth execution."

While he did not expand on his comment, he has previously claimed that doctors kill babies who are born alive after a failed abortion attempt.

In a fact-checking article in 2019, the Associated Press said while it is illegal to kill babies, it is not illegal to withhold sophisticated medical treatments from newborn babies whose severe foetal abnormalities leave them with no chance of survival.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 143 deaths were recorded between 2003 and 2014 involving infants born alive after attempted abortions.

Anti-abortion activists have been lobbying for laws that would see doctors punished – and even imprisoned – for failing to make medical interventions to try to save the lives of babies in such circumstances.

In hi State of the Union address last year the president wrongly claimed that New York would allow "a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth".

And at a rally in Florida in 2019 he said: "Democrats are aggressively pushing late-term abortion allowing children to be ripped from their mother's womb, right up until the moment of birth. The baby is born and you wrap the baby beautifully and you talk to the mother about the possible execution of the baby."

Additional reporting by the Associated Press