Kentucky governor attacks abortion stance

Gov. Andy Beshear’s latest attack on vice presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance once again drummed up controversy on social media after bringing up the subject of abortion during his Monday night speech at the Democratic National Convention.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Beshear was asked about the Republican Party’s stance on abortion. He soon brought up Vance, who he previously called a “phony.”

“JD Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape ‘inconvenient,'” Beshear said. “Inconvenience is traffic. Make him go through this.”

Beshear also said Republicans “don’t have any empathy at all” in regard to the party’s stance on abortion.

Shortly after the interview aired, Vance responded to Beshear’s comments on X, formerly Twitter, saying Beshear’s comments implied the governor wished for a member of Vance’s family to be sexually assaulted.

“What a disgusting person,” Vance wrote.

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In a followup interview, Beshear said he was not suggesting anyone in Vance’s family be assaulted, calling Vance’s response a “deflection,” according to a report from WAVE-TV.

“Obviously, I’d never wish harm on anyone,” he told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “Again, deflection, trying to make himself and Donald Trump the victims.”

During the MSNBC interview, Beshear appeared to reference comments Vance made in September 2021, where he was asked about whether anti-abortion laws should include an exception for victims of rape and incest.

“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,” Vance said at the time.

Vance later denied he had directly referred to rape as an inconvenience.

Vance has previously said abortion policies should be “primarily be a state issue,” while adding “it’s fine to sort of set some minimum national standard.” He also said a new Trump administration would not allow the Federal Drug Administration to ban the abortion drug mifepristone, which was proposed in Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda promoted by The Heritage Foundation.

Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@gannett.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter

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