A Democratic governor suggested on Tuesday that Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) should be made to “go through” having a member of his family raped. Hadley Duvall, a rape victim-turned-abortion activist, introduced the governor of her home state of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, at the Democratic National Convention on Monday afternoon, hailing the pro-abortion governor as a “champion for women.” Taking the stage, Beshear boasted of abortion-on-demand as a necessary option for women impregnated by rape. “Yet Donald Trump brags about tearing a constitutional right away from Hadley and every other woman and girl in our country,” the governor said.

He continued, “In 21 states, Trump’s actions have resulted in extreme bans on abortion — in my state — even in cases of rape, incest, and non-viable pregnancies.” Beshear added that pro-life laws like those in Kentucky fail “any test of humanity, any test of basic decency, any test of whether you have any underlying empathy.”

Appearing on MSNBC the following morning, Beshear said, “Think of what some people have had to go through because of these laws. I mean, J.D. Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape ‘inconvenient.’ Like, inconvenience is traffic. Make him go through this.”

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand, “Democrats believe that an unborn child can be able to be killed at any time under any circumstances. That is what makes their views on abortion both consistent and extreme — they are fine with killing a completely innocent person.” She continued, “As pro-lifers, we must combat this with a view of life that is just as consistent, but instead of being based in the culture of death, is based in the truth that all life is precious regardless of how old or how young, regardless of the circumstances — tragic or not — surrounding a person’s conception, and regardless of how long or how short that life will be.”

“What the hell is this?” Vance, the running mate of former President Donald Trump, asked afterward over social media, in response to video of Beshear’s comments. “Why is [he] wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!? What a disgusting person.”

When asked on MSNBC how he would respond to Vance, Beshear laughed. “It’s ridiculous. But it’s also deflection. J.D. Vance knows that he and Donald Trump are so wrong on this issue, and so he’s trying to make himself the victim,” he said. “Listen, Hadley Duvall was a victim. The women that were on the stage last night, the couple that had to go through a non-viable pregnancy, are victims,” he continued. “As a man, J.D. Vance will never have to face any of this personally, but it’s sad that he lacks the empathy to be able to put himself in a different position and to understand why having exceptions, having reproductive freedom is so important in the first place. Obviously, I’d never wish harm on anyone. It’s just, again, deflection, trying to make himself and Donald Trump the victims.”

“His comments are disgusting. He’s effectively fantasizing about some member of my family getting raped so that I know what it feels like. I just think that’s really gross and really disgusting,” Vance later said to reporters. The senator continued, speaking of Beshear, “The guy is a complete loser and he’s gone after me repeatedly, but this particular thing, going after my family, really bothered me.” Vance also clarified, “And look, the comments that he’s talking about, I never once called rape ‘inconvenient.’ It’s a total fiction of the Democratic National Committee. I never said it, I never said anything like it. What I was talking about was the context of an unexpected pregnancy — not one caused by rape — and I think we shouldn’t see unexpected pregnancies, babies that come from them, as inconveniences.”

William Martin, Vance’s communications director, issued a statement Tuesday on behalf of the Trump-Vance campaign, saying, “After speaking on the DNC main stage last night, Harris campaign surrogate Governor Andy Beshear went on national television this morning and explicitly called for a member of Senator Vance’s family to be raped.” Martin continued, “His comments are disgusting, vile, and should not be tolerated in American politics. We call on Kamala Harris to immediately repudiate Governor Beshear’s comments and demonstrate that regardless of partisan disagreements, this kind of violent rhetoric has no place in our public discourse.”

Szoch commented, “The idea that Governor Beshear is wishing that one of J.D. Vance’s family members should go through rape is sickening — and this just shows that this man, and the Democratic Party he represents, do not care about women at all.” She asked, “Did he think about the fact that other times political leaders have called for violence against government officials there are people out there who have followed through on that call — like for instance, President Joe Biden calling for a bullseye on President Trump just days before an assassination attempt was made on his life? No.” Szoch added, “Governor Beshear just wanted to score political points by attacking the innocent, and that is on brand with the Democrat pro-abortion stance that calls for killing unborn children with taxpayer dollars up until the moment of birth.”