by Nicole Silverio
Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear suggested on Tuesday that a family member of Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance be raped and impregnated in an attempt to argue against the Ohio senator’s abortion stance.
Beshear accused Vance of suggesting that pregnancies resulting from rape are “inconvenient” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and posited that Vance should experience the trauma resulting from one of his family members being raped and impregnated. Beshear said Vance and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump cannot represent all Americans because their abortion stances suggest that they lack empathy.
“J.D. Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape inconvenient. Like inconvenience is traffic. Make him go through this,” Beshear said. “I mean, someone being violated, someone being harmed and then telling them that they don’t have options after that. That fails any test of decency, of humanity. But here’s the thing, it also shows they don’t have any empathy at all. And a president and a vice president has to have empathy. You got be able to put yourself in a position that you’ve never been in to try to understand somebody else because you’ve got to be a president and a vice for all of America.”
Dem Gov Dismissively Suggests Vance Family Member Be Impregnated By Rape In Attempt To Knock His Abortion Stance pic.twitter.com/K33yoykj1c
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 20, 2024
Vance called the Kentucky governor “a disgusting person ” in a statement on “X” regarding the remark.
“What the hell is this? Why is @AndyBeshearKY wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!? What a disgusting person,” Vance said.
What the hell is this?
Why is @AndyBeshearKY wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!?
What a disgusting person. https://t.co/11Kp1h92MN
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 20, 2024
Vance communications director William Martin said Beshear’s remark is “disgusting,” “vile” and intolerable.
“After speaking on the DNC main stage last night, Harris campaign surrogate Governor Andy Beshear went on national television this morning and explicitly called for a member of Senator Vance’s family to be raped,” Martin said. “His comments are disgusting, vile, and should not be tolerated in American politics. We call on Kamala Harris to immediately repudiate Governor Beshear’s comments and demonstrate that regardless of partisan disagreements, this kind of violent rhetoric has no place in our public discourse.”
Former Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan accused Vance of being too extreme on abortion, citing a ten-year-old victim raped by an illegal immigrant who fled Ohio to obtain an abortion. Vance disputed these allegations during a 2022 debate by saying the ten-year-old in question should be permitted to obtain an abortion “if she and her family so choose to do so.”
“I have said repeatedly on the record that I think that that girl should be able to get an abortion if she and her family so choose to do so. But let’s talk about that case, because why was a ten-year-old girl in our community raped in our state in the first place? … The thing they never mention is that that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien, somebody that never should have been in this state in the first place.”
JD Vance responds to Tim Ryan's criticism of his abortion stance:
"Why was a ten-year-old girl raped in our community…the thing they never mention is that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien." pic.twitter.com/j2ImYbmt6w
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 11, 2022
Vance said in a 2021 interview that no child should be viewed as an “inconvenience” regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
“My view on this has been very clear and I think the question betrays a certain presumption that is wrong,” Vance said in 2021. “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society. The question really, to me, is about the baby.”
He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the Democrats “twisted [his] words,” in which he argued that he wants to change society’s perception of babies being an inconvenience.
Beshear’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Nicole Silverio is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Andy BeShear” by MSNBC.
