Donald Trump accused of telling mistruths about late-term abortion

Large majority of abortions occur in first 13 weeks

Donald Trump has been criticised for grossly misrepresenting abortions after he described a late term termination on the "final day" of a pregnancy in graphic terms.

During the final presidential debate in Las Vegas, Mr Trump said: “I think it’s terrible. If you go with what Hillary is saying, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

"Now, you can say that that's okay, and Hillary can say that that's okay, but it's not okay with me.

"Because based on what she's saying and based on where she's going and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day." He added: "That's not acceptable."

Many on Twitter have pointed out that if this were to happen, in most cases this would simply be a caesarean section. If someone then killed the child, it would be infanticide.

Yet what Mr Trump is most likely to have been referring to is a rare procedure called an “intact dilation and extraction”, usually reserved for when a baby or a mother’s health is at risk. Women who undergo the procedure have often wanted a pregnancy but it ended in tragedy.

The procedure has become a focal point of the abortion debate, despite it being outlawed in most instances under Geroge W Bush in 2003.

Only 1.3 per cent of abortions performed in the US occur after the 21^st week of pregnancy, according to analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice think thank. The large majority of abortions – around 91 per cent – occur in the first 13 weeks.

The property tycoon has taken an incoherent approach to abortion in the past. In 1999 he appeared in an interview with NBC news where he was he was "very pro-choice."

Yet Mr Trump has also called for women who undergo abortions to be punished.