Anti-abortion 'hardliner' Herschel Walker 'flatly' denies he paid for an abortion as son defends report
04 October 2022
Republican Herschel Walker has taken a hardline position on abortion in Georgia’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, declaring that he favors a total abortion ban and that there should be “no exception” for rape or incest. Walker, who is trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Walker, opposes abortion even if the life of the mother is in danger.
But according to reporting in the Daily Beast, Walker paid for an abortion in 2009 after impregnating a girlfriend — an allegation he has flatly denied.
In an article published by the Beast on Monday night, October 3, the Beast’s Roger Sollenberger reported, “A woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns told The Daily Beast that after she and Walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009, he urged her to get an abortion. The woman said she had the procedure and that Walker reimbursed her for it. She supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a ‘get well’ card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker.”
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Sollenberger added, “The woman said there was a $125 difference because she ‘ball-parked’ the cost of an abortion after Googling the procedure and added on expenses such as travel and recovery costs. Additionally, The Daily Beast independently corroborated details of the woman’s claims with a close friend she told at the time and who, according to the woman and the friend, took care of her in the days after the procedure.”
Walker, according to the woman, told her, in 2009, it was “not the right time” for him to have a child. When the Beast, according to Sollenberger, asked the woman if Walker had ever expressed any regret over the decision, she said that he never had.
“Asked why she came forward,” Sollenberger reported, “the woman pointed to Walker’s hardline anti-abortion position.” The woman told the Beast that she couldn’t stomach “the hypocrisy anymore,” adding, “We all deserve better.”
In response to the Beast’s reporting, Walker issued an official statement calling it a “flat-out lie” and saying that he denied it in the “strongest possible terms.”
But Walker’s son Christian Walker defended the Beast’s reporting on Twitter. Lashing out at his father in an October 3 tweet, Christian Walker posted, “I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us. You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.”
In a separate October 3 tweet, Christian Walker wrote, “I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you.”
When CNN asked Warnock about the Beast’s reporting, the incumbent senator declined to comment on the allegations. But Warnock, a Baptist minister who is pro-choice, did criticize Walker’s hardline position on abortion.
CNN quoted Warnock as saying, “I’ll let the pundits decide how they think it will impact the race. But I have been consistent in my view that a patient’s room is too narrow and cramped a space for a woman, her doctor, and the government.… And my opponent, on the other hand, is talking about a nationwide ban with no exceptions.”
On Monday night, October 3, CNN’s Eric Bradner reported, “CNN has not independently verified the allegations reported by the Daily Beast.”
Polls released during the second half of September showed a very close U.S. Senate race in Georgia. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released on September 20 showed Walker ahead of Warnock by 2 percent, but polls released later that month showed Warnock ahead by 4 percent (Fox News) or 2 percent (CBS News/YouGov and Marist).
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