During the debate, Donald Trump inaccurately referred to abortions “after birth.” He has previously falsely claimed states were passing legislation “where you can execute that baby after birth.”

“The problem they have is they’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.”

This is false.

Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

Abortion rights advocates say terms like this and “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Abortions later in pregnancy also are usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk, medical experts say. In most cases, these are also wanted pregnancies, experts say.

President Joe Biden blamed Trump during the debate for the deluge of state abortion restrictions since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

As president, Trump appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped form the majority that overturned the constitutional right to abortion — and he has taken credit for that during his campaign.

Highlighting Trump’s connection to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its impact on pregnant people across the U.S. has become a cornerstone of Biden’s campaign. Biden has also warned that a second Trump term could lead to nationwide abortion restrictions.

Trump said on the debate stage that he believes in abortion ban exceptions “for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”

Those exceptions are at the heart of a case the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling on Thursday. Under Idaho’s abortion ban, women have been unable to get abortions in medical emergencies because the state only has an exception to save the life of the mother — not to save her health.

Trump repeated his catchall states-rights response when abortion rights came up, touting that he returned the abortion question to individual states after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which once granted a federal right to abortion.

It’s an attempt to find a more cautious stance on the issue, which has become a vulnerability for Republicans and driven turnout for Democrats.

While Trump has repeatedly claimed “the people” are now the ones deciding abortion access, that’s not true everywhere.

Voters don’t have a direct say through citizen-led ballot measures in about half the states. In those that do allow such measures, abortion rights coalitions in several states this year have faced intense efforts by anti-abortion groups to thwart citizen initiatives on reproductive rights.

Voters in seven states, including conservative ones such as Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes over the past two years.