What explains Donald Trump’s war on late-term abortions?

WHILE LEROY CARHART, a doctor who specialises in late-term abortions, was finishing his most recent termination, the manager of his clinic in Bethesda, Maryland, outlined the procedure. Abortions in the second half of pregnancy take between two and four days, said Christine Spiegoski, a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read: “Don’t like abortion? Prevent pregnancy by f**king yourself!” First, the doctor injects potassium chloride or digoxin into the fetus’s heart, killing it within minutes. If he is unable to reach the heart and instead pumps the drug into the amniotic sac, death can take up to 24 hours. Dr Carhart euthanises the fetus at the beginning of the procedure because its tissue and skull then soften and contract, easing removal. At 25 weeks a fetus weighs around a pound and a half and is over a foot long; some of those Dr Carhart aborts are older.

Over the next two or three days, medical staff at the clinic, one of only three in America to provide third-trimester abortions, insert small sticks into the woman’s cervix to stretch it open. Then the woman is induced and the fetus delivered. The goal, says Ms Spiegoski, is a delivery “as much like regular labour as possible”. The procedure she describes is quite different from President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated claim that late-term abortions involve...