Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants abortion outlawed — but he wouldn’t say Sunday who should be punished for the procedure.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s controversial remark that women who undergo abortions should face punishment — which Trump quickly reversed — Kasich wouldn’t call for penalties for anyone involved in the process.
His comments came Sunday in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” where Kasich said women should not be punished for abortions.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen the pro-life and the pro-choice people come together to say, you know, that we’ll have to we’ll have to basically work this out and trying to punish a woman would not be the appropriate way to behave. And I think it’s going to take people working in a reasonable way working through it,” Kasich said.
But he wouldn’t say who should be punished for abortions.
Stephanopoulos asked: “If you believe that abortion is the taking of innocent, why shouldn’t a woman who makes the choice to take that life face some kind of punishment or sanction?”
And Kasich answered: “Because I think it’s difficult on her to begin with. That’s the way I feel about it, George. And that’s the end of it.”
Stephanopoulos then pressed about why that stance applies if it follows that “a women is there making the choice to take a life?”
“Look, I’ve said what I have to say about the subject,” Kasich said. “You know how I have behaved, both as a legislator and as a governor and I would like to have those exceptions. I would like to leave it to those exceptions. And it will be up to the states to decide how they want to handle this.”
Then asked whether abortion-performing doctors should be punished, Kasich said: “We’re going to leave this up to the states to work this out the way they want to, George.”
Stephanopoulos pushed further, asking Kasich if he was taking no position on doctors facing punishment if abortion is outlawed.
“Let me just put it to you this way: I’m not. Today, I’m not,” he said. “I’ve just told you how I feel about it. Repeal Roe v. Wade, make exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother, turn it back to the states for them to decide what they do. We would, you know, ultimately have a policy. It has to be something that can gain acceptance as something that’s reasonable and we’ll go from there.”