CNN’s Tapper Grills MS Governor on Law Banning Abortions in Cases of Incest: Will You Force Birth on Women Who ‘Have This Tragedy Inside Them?’

CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) on his state’s abortion policy — should the Supreme Court overturn the federal abortion protections of Roe v. Wade, as suggested by Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked majority opinion draft.

Reeves joined Tapper on Sunday for State of the Union, and the CNN host prefaced the interview by noting Mississippi has a “trigger law” in the event of Roe’s overturn, which would ban abortions except in cases of rape or endangerment of the mother’s life. Tapper put Reeves through a series of questions on the implications for Mississippi — touching on the state’s child poverty rates, infant mortality, and lack of paid maternity leave.

As Tapper dove into Mississippi’s snapback law, he asked Reeves to explain why the law doesn’t allow for abortions in cases of incest. Reeves deflected at first by referring to the Democratic state lawmakers who were in office when the law was formulated, but Tapper pressed.

“Why is it acceptable in your state to force girls who are victims of incest to carry those children to term?” Tapper asked.

Reeves argued that abortion procedures overwhelmingly happen in elective cases while incest is a much more uncommon circumstance by comparison.

“If we need to have that conversation in the future about potential exceptions in the trigger law, we can certainly do that,” Reeves said.

“This is your law,” Tapper interjected. He added, “that is going to be the law of Mississippi.”

The CNN anchor went on to ask Reeves if the state will force mothers to carry a child to term, even if the fetus is detected with “serious or fatal abnormalities that will not allow [it] to live outside the womb.”

“Is the state of Mississippi going to force those girls and women who have this tragedy inside them to carry the child to term?” He asked. “Are you going to force them to do that?”

Reeves countered that Tapper was talking about “examples that are rare and are very small percentage of the overall abortions. The reason for that is because when you talk to Americans, regardless of what the polling says with respect to overturning Roe v. Wade, the vast majority of Americans recognize that the abortion laws in America right now, that is what are extreme.”

Tapper went on to contradict Reeves claim about fatal abnormalities, saying they are “really not all that rare, to be honest. I know plenty of women that has happened to, and they had to — they wanted to have a healthy child but they weren’t able to. And your law would force them to carry the child to term.”

Watch above, via CNN.