At the Georgia Senate debate Friday night, GOP candidate Herschel Walker denied the recent allegations that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, and he challenged “pro-choice pastor” and incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock to square the high black abortion rate in the state with his support for “Black Lives Matter.”
“He told me Black Lives Matter,” Walker said of his opponent. “There’s more black babies aborted than anything, so if black lives matter, why are you not protecting those babies?”
Walker was asked to address the bombshell report, released by the Daily Beast last week, of an anonymous woman who claimed Walker paid for the abortion of a child they conceived together. “That is a lie,” he said, before pivoting to Warnock’s unapologetic support for abortion. Walker has declared repeatedly that he is pro-life. However, last week, his son Christian Walker took to the Internet to proclaim that he was “done with the lies,” condemning his father as a hypocrite for pretending to be a “family man” even though he allegedly abandoned him in childhood.
Asked whether he would support any limitations on abortion, Warnock dodged and doubled down on his catchphrase defending the so-called right to choose: “A patient’s room is too small a place for a woman, her doctor, and the U.S. government.” Warnock accused the “extremist Supreme Court” of robbing this essential liberty from women overnight.
Walker retorted that his rival “did not mention that there’s a baby in that room as well.” Warnock’s analogy is additionally flawed, Walker argued, because he is advocating government intervention to federally subsidize abortion. “He’s asking the government to pay for it, so he’s bringing the government back into the room,” Walker said.
“I have a profound reverence for life and a deep respect for choice,” Warnock said. He is a self-professed “pro-choice pastor,” a position that many Christians find contradictory. Alongside Republican senator Marco Rubio, Warnock said he has been a champion for life by pushing legislation to address maternal mortality.
Meanwhile, he accused Walker of being in favor of an outright abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. “I think that’s extreme,” Warnock said. However, the former NFL football player pointed out that the Georgia pro-life law, which prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, does include such exceptions.
Moderators asked Warnock to answer to a peculiar comment he made at a campaign rally recently while talking about abortion. “Even God gave us a choice,” he said to the crowd. Without clarifying at the Friday debate, he reiterated, “It is apparent that God has given us a range of choices.”
The topic then turned to a recent report from the Washington Free Beacon that Warnock’s church owned a low-income apartment building that evicted tenants for small past-due rent payments during the pandemic, when many poor people struggled with employment and to keep their housing. Walker repeated his recent promise that he “will pay” the debts of those residents that Ebenezer Baptist Church allegedly kicked out. “He won’t answer that about evicting the people from the church,” Walker said.
“We have not evicted those tenants,” Warnock assured the audience.
“It is written in the paper! . . . Senator, you did! It’s okay to speak the truth. Do not bear false witness!” Walker responded. Warnock’s church also reportedly pays him a $7,400-a-month housing allowance. The church owns 99 percent of the property that allegedly removed the residents.
The pair also responded to questions on election-integrity laws, specifically the law that was passed in Georgia in 2021 and was immediately labeled the new “Jim Crow” by Democrats. Reminded of the record African-American voter turnout in 2022 following the law’s enactment, Warnock insisted: “There is no question that S.B. 202 makes voting harder.” He said the law makes it harder for voters, especially minorities, to “use drop boxes” and shortens registration times. Walker shot back that “S.B. 202 made it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
Walker confirmed that he does not believe the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump. “President Biden won, and Senator Warnock won, which is why I decided to run,” he said.