Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was asked over the weekend during an appearance on Fox News at what stage in pregnancy he believes abortions should be limited.
“I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line that we’ve gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line,” Buttigieg said at the town hall in New Hampshire. “And I trust women to draw the line.”
“Just to be clear, you’re saying that you would be okay with a woman well into the third trimester deciding to abort her pregnancy?” host Chris Wallace responded.
Buttigieg tried deflecting, saying "These hypotheticals are usually set up in order to provoke a strong emotional—" before Wallace interrupted, noting that thousands of late-term abortions take place every year.
"Let's put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation," Buttigieg said. "If it's that late in your pregnancy, that means almost by definition you're expecting to carry it to term. We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name, women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime. Something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice."
"That decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision is made," Buttigieg said.
His stance clashes with answers by the overwhelming majority of voters in numerous polls.
Support for abortion in general has crept up over the years, but respondents to polls have long been against late-term abortions.
"Most Americans generally see some reason for abortion to be legal, but far more think it should be legal in the first trimester than in the second or third,” Gallup summarized.