Norah O’Donnell Had An Inflammatory Question On Abortion For Tim Walz
CBS News host Norah O’Donnell confronted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) with a blunt question on abortion rights during the vice presidential debate between Walz and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) Tuesday night.
“After Roe v. Wade was overturned, you signed a bill into law that made Minnesota one of the least restrictive states in the nation when it comes to abortion,” O’Donnell began.
“Former President Trump said in the last debate that you believe abortion in the ninth month is ‘absolutely fine.’ Yes or no?”
Walz pushed back on the question’s framing, saying, “That’s not what the bill says.”
He then pivoted to stress the importance of preserving patients’ and doctors’ ability to make their own reproductive health decisions.
“Look, this issue is what’s on everyone’s mind,” Walz said. “Donald Trump put this all into motion. He bragged about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe v. Wade — 52 years of personal autonomy. And then he tells us, ‘Oh, send it to the states, it’s a beautiful thing.’”
“Amanda Zurawski would disagree with you on ‘it’s a beautiful thing,’” Walz said, referencing the Texas woman who led a lawsuit alongside several others last year to challenge her state’s severe abortion laws. Zurawski argued that losing access to timely abortion care nearly cost her her life.
“A young bride in Texas, waiting for her child at 18 weeks. She has a complication, a tear in the membrane. She needs to go in,” Walz went on. “The medical care at that point needs to be decided by the doctor, and that would have been an abortion. But in Texas, that would have put them in legal jeopardy. She went home, got sepsis and nearly dies, and now may have difficulty having children.”
He also mentioned Hadley Duvall, a