Buttigieg backs up women who have THIRD trimester abortions as he tells Fox News audience that government doesn't make 'impossible, unthinkable choice' any better - and gets standing ovation at end of town hall

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that governments shouldn't stand in the way of women who want to seek abortions in the final three months of their pregnancies.

The South Bend, Indiana mayor allowed that women who are six, seven or eight months into their pregnancies have 'perhaps chosen a name' or 'purchased a crib.'

But Fox News Channel moderator Chris Wallace found no flexibility in his pro-choice stand at a town hall held by the channel for the Democratic candidate.

'As horrible as that choice is,' Buttigieg said, 'that woman – that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance – but that decision's not going to be made any better medically or morally because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.'

Six thousand women in America each year choose to terminate their pregnancies less than three months before their due-dates, instead of carrying the babies to term. That represents less than 1 per cent of the roughly 700,000 U.S. abortions each year.

Pro-life advocates have seen late-term abortions as a largely rhetorical firewall in public debates – an extreme that renders more common examples less comfortable.

Some in pro-choice circles, however, have begun to push the envelope, including Democrats in New York and Virginia this year. 

The United States is one of just seven countries that permit elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. 

The 37-year-old Buttigieg, making his first run at an office with more than 100,000 constituents, would be America's youngest-ever president if he were to move into the Oval Office in 2021. 

He framed the late-term abortion question in terms of women who 'get the most devastating medical news of their lifetimes, something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice.'

His appearance on the Fox News Channel, a network historically friendlier to Republicans than to Democrats, raised questions on the left and hackles at the White House.

'Hard to believe @FoxNews is wasting airtime on Mayor Pete, as Chris Wallace likes to call him. Fox is moving more and more to the losing (wrong) side in covering the Dems,' Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.

'They got dumped from the Democrats['] boring debates, and they just want in. They forgot the people who got them there.'

'Chris Wallace said, 'I actually think, whether you like his opinions or not, that Mayor Pete has a lot of substance ... fascinating biography.' Gee, he never speaks well of me - I like Mike Wallace better...and Alfred E. Newman [sic] will never be President!'

Alfred E. Neuman was a cartoonish MAD Magazine mascot whose goofy, toothy grin and big ears made him a spot-on caricature of Buttigieg for some pro-Trump partisans.

Chris Wallace is the son of Mike Wallace, the CBS veteran who was one of 60 Minutes' first correspondents and died in 2012. 

Asked about the president's antics on Twitter, Buttigieg shrugged and grinned. 

'The tweets are – I don't care!' he said after a pregnant pause.

'We need to make sure that we're changing the channel from this show that he's created,' he said, blaming the mass-media for chasing the bright spotlight of Trump's social media outbursts - and gaining applause from the audience.

Trump himself appeared on Fox News an hour after the Buttigieg town hall ended, in a pre-recorded interview with British political adviser-turned Fox News host Steve Hilton. 

Buttigieg was the third Democratic candidate to appear in a Fox News town hall, with Bernie Sanders the first, followed by Amy Klobuchar.

But another candidate, Elizabeth Warren, publicly refused to take part in one, accusing the network of using the town halls to whitewash its reputation.

Buttigieg said he was happy to be on the network and wanted to reach out to its viewers, but also hit out at two of the network's opinion hosts - Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham - accusing them of being 'not always there in good faith.'

He president that as a contrast to the viewers, saying they were watching 'in good faith.'

Buttigieg said he was defying critics inside his party to appear and said: 'I get where that's coming from especially when you see what goes on with some opinion hosts on this network. 

'I mean when you've got Tucker Carlson saying that immigrants make America dirty. 

'When you've got Laura Ingraham comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps.

'There is a reason why anybody has to swallow hard and think twice before participating in this media ecosystem.'

But he said that as a Democrat, 'I think we have to find people where they are.'   

Buttigieg ended the town hall with a standing ovation, prompting Wallace to say 'wow' as the audience got to their feet and giving the breakout star of the Democratic field a viral moment similar to the one Sanders gained on his Fox News appearance when he advocated universal health care.

It's not clear whether Trump, who watches Fox News religiously and tweets about its programs almost daily, saw the broadcast.

If the TVs in the White House residence were on and tuned to their normal default, he saw Buttigieg referring to abortion as 'a national right' and 'an American freedom.'

And he saw an exclusively Democratic audience in New Hampshire cheer for his defense of abortions without restrictions.

When Wallace asked if Buttigieg would support laws that placed 'any limit' on women's access to abortion, Buttigieg dismissed the suggestion that government should decide what's acceptable.

'I trust women to draw the line,' he said, earning thunderous applause.

He also said young Americans should have better sex-education and greater access to birth control, with the goal of 'preventing many of the unwanted pregnancies from happening in the first place.'

As of May 19 Buttigieg was in fifth place in an average of Democratic primary polls maintained by Real Clear Politics, with 7 per cent. 

Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the field with 38.3 per cent, more than twice the support of his nearest rival Bernie Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator. 

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris are polling at 8.5 per cent and 7.3 per cent respectively. 

There are 24 Democrats running for president so far. After Buttigieg's fifth-place showing, the field drops off significantly. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke and New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker are the only other candidates polling higher than 2 per cent.