J.D. Vance Won’t Say if He Supports Graham’s Abortion Bill
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AVON, OH — Ohio Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance would not say whether he’d support a national ban on abortion at a campaign stop at Willoway Nurseries.
A Vance campaign spokesperson also declined to offer a position after the candidate left for a radio interview.
The federal bill, proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), would ban most abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Exceptions would include the life of the mother, incest against a minor, and rape.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) listens during the announcement of a new abortion bill on Capitol Hill in Washington
Vance was campaigning in Ohio with Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, and spoke to about 150 supporters who were gathered at Willoway Nurseries.
Before being asked about the national ban, Vance said that his grandmother, the late Bonnie Blanton—whom he refers to as “mamaw” in his book and was played by Glenn Close in the movie version of Hillbilly Elegy—was anti-abortion and had eight miscarriages.
“Absolutely,” Vance told The Daily Beast when asked if his grandmother informed his views on abortion.
“My mamaw, until very late in life, she was pro-choice,” Vance continued. “I think her views changed a little bit over time. People talk a lot about the number of miscarriages she had. I knew that she had a lot, and I knew it was definitely a traumatic thing for her.”
Glenn Close as Mamaw in the film Hillbilly Elegy.
A voter then approached Vance and attempted to hand him a wad of cash.
When a staffer asked if it was a donation, the woman said that it was. The staffer then promised to give the roll of bills to the campaign’s finance director.
Attempts to follow up with Vance about Graham’s bill were unsuccessful as he shuttled off to a radio interview.
“Now, I would naturally wanna make a joke about that,” Vance said of the cash donation, ignoring the question on the 15-week abortion ban before gesturing to the staffer. “But these guys get mad when I make jokes.”
Vance has previous stated he is anti-abortion and in an interview with the Catholic Current last year compared abortion to slavery.
“There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” he said, “and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.”
“Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overruled,” he said in the January interview. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022−let’s say 2024. Then every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. Of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity… If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening because it’s really creepy? I’m pretty sympathetic to that, actually. Hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion and California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
Vance is set to attend a Trump rally in Youngstown Saturday night.
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