'A massive gaffe': Mehmet Oz scrutinized for saying abortion is 'still murder’ at any pregnancy stage

31 August 2022

Dr. Mehmet Oz is facing blowback for his remarks suggesting abortion is "still murder" regardless of the stage in pregnancy.

According to The Daily Beast, the television doctor now running as a Republican candidate for the Senate has had some conflicting arguments in regard to his stance on abortion.

The news outlet's highlighting of Oz's contradictions follow his recent remarks at a town hall that took place just one week before the Republican primary in Pennsylvania. At the time, Oz weighed in on when he believed conception starts.

“I do believe life starts at conception, and I’ve said that multiple times,” Oz said during the event. “If life starts at conception,” Oz went on, “why do you care what age the heart starts beating at? It’s, you know, it’s still murder, if you were to terminate a child whether their heart’s beating or not.”

He went on to further explain his previous remarks during a 2019 interview saying according to The Beast, that "he had been 'concerned' about making sure anti-abortion laws could be enforced."

“My mother-in-law wrote a lot of the original pro-life literature in Montgomery County,” Oz told the audience. “My argument in that radio interview was as a doctor, a heart starts beating at around nine weeks. So I was concerned that if legislators picked a timeframe that’s not medically accurate, it would invalidate the law.”

Oz did make remarks to that regard back in 2019. “If you’re going to define life by a beating heart,” he said, “then make it a beating heart, not little electrical exchanges in the cell that no one would hear or think about as a heart.”

Although Oz is standing behind his arguments, a former staffer for the Pennsylvania governor's office has pushed back with an opposing view. Speaking to The Beast, the staffer insisted Oz is missing the mark and that his strict abortion stance is “outside of where most Pennsylvania voters are.”

“In the current environment, that is such a massive gaffe, because it speaks directly to people’s biggest concerns about voting for an anti-abortion Republican like Dr. Oz,” the former staffer said. “A lot of voters are very concerned—even if they are uncomfortable with abortion themselves—that there are gonna be these hardline bans that prevent their own family and friends from getting the care they need.”

“Especially the voters Oz absolutely has to win,” this former staffer continued, “like moderates and independents, suburban voters, voters in the middle of the ideology bracket in Pennsylvania.”

A campaign spokesperson for John Fetterman is also pushing back.

“Dr. Oz is wildly out of touch with the people of Pennsylvania who support abortion rights by 9-10. Dr. Oz wants to let extremists ban abortion with no exceptions in cases of rape or incest—in PA and across the country,” said Emilia Rowland. “If he’s elected, he will be a rubber stamp to criminalize abortion, appoint justices even more radical than today’s, and send doctors, nurses, and patients to jail.”

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