CNN host Jake Tapper debated Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on the state’s abortion laws Sunday.
In a clip shared on Twitter, Tapper noted that Mississippi has a “snapback” law that was passed in 2007, which does not allow for abortions in cases of incest. Tapper argued that the state forced female victims of incest to carry those children to term, and at one point described children with potential abnormalities as “tragedies.”
“Can you explain why that is going to be your law?” Tapper asked Reeves, despite having just stated that the law has been in place since 2007. (RELATED: New CNN Head Admits He Considers Himself A ‘Roadside Bomb’ When Employees Mess Up)
Jake Tapper: “Why is it acceptable in your state to force girls who are victims of incest to carry those children to term?”
Tate Reeves: “The reality is, again, that affects less than 1% of all abortions in America.”
Tapper: “Are you going to force them to do that?” pic.twitter.com/kJLra2I9ce
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 8, 2022
“Well that’s going to be the law because in 2007 the Mississippi legislature passed it,” Reeves responded, “I will tell you Jake, and this sort of speaks to how far the Democrats in Washington have come on this issue, but in 2007 when the trigger law was put in place, we had a Democrat Speaker of the House and we had a Democrat Chairman of the Public Health committee in the Mississippi House of Representatives —”
Tapper then cut Reeves off, asking, “why is it acceptable in your state to force girls that were victims of incest to carry those … children, to term?” Reeves responded by noting that less than 1% of abortions involve a form of incest, a statistic shared by USA Today. He also noted that if there need to be exceptions made to the trigger law, the state of Mississippi can certainly do that.
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“What about a fetus that has serious or fatal abnormalities that will not allow that fetus to live outside the womb? Is the state of Mississippi going to force those girls and women who have this tragedy inside them to carry the child to term?” Tapper asked.
“I think these questions illustrate exactly what we’ve been talking about … you’re dealing in examples that are rare and a very small percentage of abortions,” Reeves responded before noting that overturning Roe v. Wade would just return the decision-making process on abortion law to the states.
Tapper then said that he is asking specifically about “the law in [Mississippi] and the exceptions that the law does not offer to Mississippi women and girls who are victims of incest, who have fetuses that have fatal or very serious abnormalities, which is not really that rare to be honest. I mean, I know plenty of women that that has happened to.”
A New York Times analysis found that roughly 85% of prenatal blood tests for rare chromosomal disorders provided false positives to expectant mothers.
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Upwards of six percent of mothers who were told their child would be born with a fatal or serious abnormality obtained an abortion, according to a study published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.