Proponents of abortion rights were dumbfounded by President Joe Biden’s vague and sometimes incoherent messages on abortion access during Thursday night’s debate, especially when he declined to rebuke former president Donald Trump’s false claims that Democrats are in favor of killing babies.

“The debate was a disaster,” said Dr. Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado. “It’s going to be hard to recover from this.”

The debate should have been a layup for…