Herschel Walker Is Against Abortions, Except the One He Paid For
Running back-turned-anti-abortion-politician Herschel Walker reportedly paid for a woman to have an abortion, throwing a wrench into his Republican campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia, and prompting his conservative influencer son to publicly condemn him Monday.
Walker has repeatedly touted his anti-abortion views during the campaign, saying he would support a national ban on abortion with “no exception in my mind” for rape, incest, or to save the life of the patient. But in 2009, Walker appears to have reimbursed a woman for her abortion and later sent her a get well card, according to physical receipts obtained by The Daily Beast.
The woman, who was not identified but is reportedly still in touch with Walker, said that she dated Walker and became pregnant in 2009—after which, she says, Walker urged her to get an abortion.
The woman provided The Daily Beast with a receipt for the abortion, an image of a signed personal check from Walker, and a get-well card that reads “Rest…Relax…Recover,” and a signed note from Walker which said: “Pray you are feeling better.”
The woman was still in touch with Walker as of Monday, and a Walker surrogate has asked her to vouch for the candidate’s character on multiple occasions, according to The Daily Beast.
“I just can’t with the hypocrisy anymore,” said the woman, who told The Daily Beast Walker’s extreme views on abortion motivated her to come forward. “We all deserve better.”
Walker, who previously denied fathering three of his four children before finally acknowledging their existence this summer, said in a statement Monday that the story is a “flat-out lie” and “repugnant hatchet job.” He also claimed that he would file a defamation lawsuit against The Daily Beast Tuesday.
The Walker campaign did not immediately respond to a Tuesday email from VICE News seeking comment and a copy of the lawsuit Walker said he would file.
Right-wing influencer Christian Walker, the only child the candidate acknowledged fathering before this summer, exploded on Twitter Monday and Tuesday.
“I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,” Christian Walker wrote Monday. “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 video published Tuesday, Walker lashed out at other conservatives who’ve questioned his previous support of his father’s campaign.
“I’m done. Done. Everything has been a lie,” Walker said. “You have no idea what I have been through in my life… what me and my mom and I have survived. We could have ended this on day one.”
Christian Walker’s mother, Cindy DeAngelis Grossman, said in an interview more than a decade ago that Herschel Walker had been physically abusive to her and once held a gun to her head and said “he was going to blow my brains out.”
Clips from that interview have been used in attack ads against Walker during the Senate campaign; Grossman filed for divorce from Walker in 2001 citing “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior,” the Associated Press reported last year.
“We were told at the beginning of this he was going to get ahead of his past, hold himself accountable, all of these different things… he didn’t do any of that,” Christian Walker said in the video. “Everything has been a lie. Everything’s been downplayed, everything’s been cutting corners. The whole thing.”
“Don’t lie on the lives you’ve destroyed and act like you’re some moral family man,” Walker said of his father.
Herschel Walker tweeted Monday: “I LOVE my son no matter what.”
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Paul Blest, Khareem Sudlow
