Andy Beshear draws rebuke from Vance over abortion comments

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear suggested Tuesday morning that Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance could gain more empathy for those who advocate for abortion access amid tragic circumstances if he went through a similar ordeal.

The comments sparked an outcry from Vance, his campaign and other Republicans. Faced with that criticism hours later, Beshear said he wasn’t trying to suggest anyone should be harmed and called the criticism a “deflection” from Republicans away from their stance on abortion.

Beshear made the initial comments during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier Tuesday, addressing the previous night’s Democratic National Convention programming which included women who say they were endangered by their states’ abortion restrictions.

Among Monday night’s speakers was Hadley Duvall, a survivor of sexual abuse who appeared in an ad last year for Beshear’s re-election campaign, as well as Beshear himself, who also criticized Vance on abortion rights on stage.

“JD Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape inconvenient. Inconvenience is traffic, I mean, it is, uh, make him go through this,” Beshear said during the Tuesday morning interview. “I mean, it is, someone being violated, someone being harmed and then telling them that they don’t have options after that. That fails any test of decency, of humanity.”

The quote Beshear is referencing came from a 2021 podcast interview with Vance.

"Should a woman be forced to carry a child to term after she has been the victim of incest or rape?" a Spectrum News reporter asked Vance.

"It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society," he replied.

"The question really to me is about the baby. We want women to have opportunities. We want women to have choices. But above all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have the right to life. Right now, our society doesn't afford that. I think it's a tragedy, and I think we can do better."

Beshear’s "Morning Joe" interview sparked criticism from former President Donald Trump and Vance’s campaign, which has highlighted the clip on social media.

“What the hell is this? Why is [Beshear] wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!? What a disgusting person,” Vance wrote in a post on X in response.

Speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon on an airport tarmac in Milwaukee, Vance called Beshear a “complete loser” and his comments “really gross and disgusting.”

“He’s gone after me repeatedly, but this particular thing, going after my family, really bothered me,” Vance said, before disputing Beshear’s characterization of his 2021 comments.

“I never once called rape inconvenient. It’s a total fiction of the Democratic National Committee. I never said it. I never said anything like it. What I was talking about was the context of an unexpected pregnancy, not one caused by rape,” he added.

“Of course, rape is a terrible, terrible tragedy and a terrible, terrible thing. I never said what the Democratic Party, accused me of saying.”

Beshear was pressed with Vance's initial criticism during a Tuesday afternoon episode of MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." The Kentucky governor replied that "of course" he wasn't trying to suggest anyone in Vance's family should be harmed, but the criticism is a "deflection" away from his party's stance on abortion rights.

“As a man, JD Vance will never have to face any of this personally. But it’s sad that he lacks the empathy to be able to put himself in a different position and to understand why having exceptions, having reproductive freedom, is so important in the first place,” Beshear said.

“Obviously, I never wish harm on anyone. It just, again, deflection, trying to make himself and Donald Trump the victims.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com