Jayapal: ‘Once You Start Getting Into’ the ‘Details’ of When Abortion Should Be Legal, ‘You’ve Lost the Discussion’

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that “once you start getting into those details” of when in the pregnancy abortion should be legal, “you’ve lost the discussion, frankly.” And what people “respond to that is very real is that these decisions are intensely personal and that we need to have the freedom to make those decisions without a Supreme Court out there making these decisions for us.”

Host Katy Tur asked, “The country — the majority of the country believes that abortion in some form should be [legal], but the numbers get a little dicier when you’re talking about when abortion should be legal. Most people in this country say the first trimester and fewer people say in the second and third trimester. Do Democrats need to be very careful how they describe what sort of access should be out there? Does that matter in terms of Democratic messaging?”

Jayapal responded, “I think that once you start getting into those details, you’ve lost the discussion, frankly. I think the thing that people respond to that is very real is that these decisions are intensely personal and that we need to have the freedom to make those decisions without a Supreme Court out there making these decisions for us. And I also think it’s important for us to always emphasize that just because I had an abortion — you know I’ve been public about being one of the one in four women in the country who has had an abortion — it does not mean that I think everybody should have an abortion. That is the point of the whole thing is that the circumstances are so personal and so specific that it is a private decision and it should remain a private decision. So, I think those are the things that really motivate people.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett