2020 FactCheck: on Abortion

Joe Donnelly: Proposed abortion bill that defined "forcible rape"

Mike Pence: Federal funding of Planned Parenthood is "morally wrong"

Q: Are you willing to hold up this entire budget over defunding Planned Parenthood?

PENCE: Well of course I am. I think the American people have begun to learn that the largest abortion provider in the country is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X, and they want to see that come to an end." [Media Matters, 4/5/11]

Mike Pence: Proposed abortion bill that defined "forcible rape"

Joe Biden: Fact-Check: opposes Hyde Amendment, after decades of support

BIDEN: The fact is that the senator knows that that's not my position. Everybody on this stage has been in the Congress and the Senate or House has voted for the Hyde Amendment at some point.

Fact-Check from Vice.com, 6/14/19: [Is that true? Yes.] The Hyde Amendment blocks federal funding for abortion. But Members of Congress don't vote directly on Hyde; rather, they vote for the package of spending bills that include Hyde. Every House or Senate member who's running for president has voted for bills that included Hyde language. Two days after declaring his support for the Hyde Amendment, Biden reversed his decades-long position on it. "If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's ZIP code," Biden said.

Kamala Harris: Repeal Hyde Amendment; unacceptable that Biden voted for it

BIDEN: The senator knows that that's not my position. Everybody on this stage has been in the Congress has voted for the Hyde Amendment at some point.

Fact-Check from Vice.com, 6/14/19: [Is Biden right? Yes.] The contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have made reversing the Hyde Amendment--a measure that blocks federal funding for abortion--a top priority on the campaign trail. Members of Congress don't vote directly on Hyde; rather, they vote for the enormous package of spending bills that include Hyde. Democrats running for the White House have tried to capitalize on that technicality. Harris has backed a bill that would effectively repeal Hyde. (It's unlikely to pass.)

Elizabeth Warren: Legal abortions are safer than tonsillectomies

Warren became the subject of increased scrutiny and rhetorical attacks from the right in January 2019, after she declared she was in the running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Against that background, a viral meme re-emerged on social media:

"'Having an abortion is no different than someone having their tonsils removed.'--Liberal Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren. Yes, she really said this."

In reality, Warren did not make these remarks. Warren was making a point about the relative safety of the procedure: On 24 July 2018, in Marie Claire magazine, Warren wrote: "When abortions are illegal, women don't stop getting them--they just risk their lives to do it. Today, thanks to Roe, getting an abortion is safer than getting your tonsils out. Before Roe v. Wade, many women turned to back-alley butchers to end their pregnancies."