Vice President Mike Pence used his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday to tear into Democrats and accuse the left of “infanticide and a culture of death” with their positions on abortion.

After lauding President Donald Trump as the most pro-life president in American history, Pence turned towards “the radical agenda of abortion on demand” supposedly becoming mainstream among Democrats. Pence made his point by citing recent comments from embattled Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D), and by noting Democratic opposition to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

“I’ve long believed that a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable,” Pence said. “With Democrats standing for late-term abortion and infanticide and a culture of death, I promise you: this president, this party and this movement will always stand for the unborn.”

Let’s break down all the reasons why this is incorrect, shall we?

Even though conservatives have made a big deal of throwing Northam’s comments around over the last few weeks, they have rarely gone into nuance or offered full context to explain how he did not, in fact, call for “infanticide.”

Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher has gone into great detail spelling out how Northam’s comments came during a radio interview about a state bill that would loosen restrictions on late-term abortions. The bill would allow women to receive an abortion when the pregnancy is medically determined to endanger the mother’s life’s, or in cases where the fetus is nonviable or barely viable for life outside of the womb.

In terms of whether the bill would permit abortion even as the mother is about ready to give birth, Northam said that in that scenario, “the baby would be delivered,” meaning by definition it can’t be aborted anymore. He said from there that the baby would be put on life support if that is what the family wants, which would involve the mother and the doctors having a conversation about the terms of continuity of life.

In this scenario, a baby would be subject to a new set of laws analogous with care for terminally ill medical patients. No matter how many times critics claim otherwise, Northam never said the baby can be killed if its born alive and needs artificial help for survival.

“We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions,” he explained. “We want the decision to be made by the mothers and their providers.”

As for Democrats voting against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Politifact has a review on the multitude of criticisms surrounding the bill.

One criticism is that the bill applies to an increasingly rare set of circumstances, so the law it would create might be redundant or very difficult to tailor for such specific, sensitive conditions.

Another objection is that the bill puts politicians in control of fetuses that are aborted due to fetal conditions that are incompatible with life. The idea is that babies born post-abortion often have such severe disabilities that render long-term survival impossible, so efforts made to extend their lives through life support should be decided on a case by case basis.

The third complaint from Democrats is that most of the bill is already covered under existing laws, so Republicans are only using it as a weapon instead of promoting any real, new legislation.

Watch above, via C-SPAN 2.

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