Walker report puts abortion back at center of Georgia race

U.S. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock, wearing a "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker, leaves a press conference after casting his primary ballot Friday, May 6, 2022 in Atlanta, Ga., during early voting. In Georgia’s pivotal U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, have each sought to cast the other as the extremist on abortion while deflecting questions about the finer points of their own positions on the issue. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

In Georgia’s pivotal U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, have each been laboring to cast the other as an extremist on abortion while deflecting questions about the finer points of their own positions.

The sidestepping by Warnock, who supports abortion rights, and Walker, who has called for a national ban, reflects the sensitivity of abortion politics in a post-Roe v. Wade America, where the procedure is open to regulation by state governments and, potentially, by Congress.

But Walker’s strategy may not work much longer after The Daily Beast reported Monday that the former University of Georgia and NFL football star encouraged and paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 — a blatant contradiction of his staunch claims that there’s “no excuse” for a procedure he characterizes as “killing.” Walker calls the report a “flat-out lie.”