JD Vance: Had Tim Ryan done his job on border security, 10-year-old Ohio girl wouldn't have been raped by illegal alien

Ohio Senate nominees J.D. Vance (R) and Rep. Tim Ryan (D) clashed in their first statewide debate in Cleveland on Monday night. Both men are vying for retiring Sen. Rob Portman's seat.

While Ryan, a 10-term Democrat congressman, frequently attacked Vance for his political associations, Vance, a best-selling author and venture capitalist, often responded both by pointing out major faults in the congressman's track record and indicating a better way forward for Ohioans.

After discussing the depredations committed against the homeland by the communist Chinese and President Joe Biden's responsibility for inflation, the debaters were asked about their support for the termination of babies in the womb.

Abortion

Ryan, who formerly claimed to be pro-life, said that he now supports "going back to Roe v. Wade."

Ryan also claimed that Ohio women who are impregnated by rape have to travel out of state, but "that's not good enough for J.D. Vance. He supports a national abortion ban in which he wants women to have to get a passport and go to Canada" to procure their abortions.

The proposed national abortion ban to which Ryan was referring, the "Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act," would not require rape victims to travel abroad to procure abortions, as they would be permitted to domestically terminate their pregnancies under the law.

Additionally, the rape victim to whom Ryan alluded and was purportedly unable to procure an abortion in Ohio was in fact able to do so, according to the state's attorney general.

In his response, Vance indicated that while each state should be able to fine-tune its own abortion laws, "some minimum national standard is totally fine with me," such as the 15-week national abortion ban introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

"We're talking about five-month-old babies," Vance added. "Fully formed babies who can feel pain. No civilized country in the world allows elective abortion that late in pregnancy. I don't think the United States should be an exception."

Vance highlighted how Ryan had voted both "for a piece of legislation that would have overturned Roe and required abortion on demand at 40 weeks for fully elective reasons" and "for a piece of legislation that would have prevented doctors from providing medical care to babies who survived botched abortions."

In 2019, Ryan indicated his support for killing the Hyde Amendment, which currently prohibits the federal funding of abortions. He voted accordingly last year. He also voted in 2021 in support of having American taxpayers pay for abortions around the world.

Convenient revisionism

Ryan suggested that Vance had called pregnancies resulting from rape an "inconvenience."

ABC News reported the original context of Vance's remarks, which did not comport with the Democrat congressman's framing.

When speaking to Spectrum News in 2021 about the inclusion of possible exceptions to pro-life laws, Vance said, "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."

Vance indicated that the birth of a human being, not its conception, may be perceived to be inconvenient or problematic if conceived as the result of a rape. In Monday's debate, he stressed that he "did not call rape inconvenient."

Tragic exceptions, Democrat rules

When both Ryan and the moderators revisited the story of the 10-year-old Ohio girl who was reportedly raped by 27-year-old Gershon Fuentes, Vance underlined how it was an "incredibly tragic situation" and reiterated his support for abortion in exceptional cases such as rape.

While recognizing the tragic nature of the crime, Vance emphasized that it was wholly preventable, since the rapist who preyed upon the 10-year-old was allegedly an illegal alien.

"You voted so many times against border wall funding, so many times for amnesty, Tim," said Vance. "If you had done your job, she would never have been raped in the first place. Do your job on border security. Don't lecture me about opinions I don't actually have."

Ryan has routinely supported incentives for illegal immigration and against border security measures.

For instance, he voted against or indicated he would not support the "Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act" (July 23, 2015); the amendment to prohibit undocumented immigrants from obtaining housing assistance in (June 9, 2015); and a bill expressing support for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (July 18, 2018).

Ryan also said that he did not support additional border wall funding while also supporting both the so-called "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" program and amnesty for over 11 million illegal aliens.

Of the 10,778 illegal aliens arrested for various crimes so far this year, 323 of those interdicted by U.S. Border Patrol had previously been convicted of sexual offenses. Last year, 488 illegal aliens were arrested for sex crimes.

Such crimes committed by illegal aliens surged last year and remain high after having declined under the Trump administration.

According U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2,150,639 illegal aliens have already stolen into the United States over the southern border in 2022.

Full: Vance/Ryan debateyoutu.be