South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg recently took a question about abortion from a 7-year-old in New Hampshire, where he made it clear a mother’s “choice” is more important to him than a human life.

“I believe that you make your decision of whether you’re going to have a child and then your decision is made and abortion is not a part of it,” the 7-year-old girl asked the Democratic presidential candidate in Henniker, New Hampshire on Thursday. “What do you think about that?”

“Well, um … thanks for speaking up about this, and thanks for being here,” Buttigieg said. “I wish I was as tuned in to big issues when I was seven as you seem to be.

“Um, … this is a hard issue for a lot of people because they believe different things. And where I live people believe different things, including people I respect,” he continued. “But the way I think about it is this choice, it’s about drawing the line. And we might each following our own beliefs have a different idea about where to draw the line.

“What I hope everybody, or at least most of us can agree on, is who gets to draw the line. And that’s the person making the decision, that’s the woman in question. And I trust women to make that choice. I don’t think that choice is easy, and I know it isn’t going to be any better with the government saying what you’ve got to do.”

His remarks drew applause from the small group of mostly elderly white folks who came out to hear him speak.

NBC News reporter Priscilla Thompson posted video of the exchange to Twitter on Thursday, along with a few other quips from the gathering.

“During his speech to the crowd, Buttigieg expressed concern for the reputation of the US among world leaders,” Thompson tweeted. “’It hurts as an American to see the American president being laughed at, both behind his back and to his face, by the leaders of the world,’ he said.”

“He also talked about the Trump Administration’s new work requirement to qualify for SNAP. Alluding to scripture Buttigieg said, ‘I was hungry and you did not feed me’ and called for greater moral leadership,” Thompson wrote.

The stop was one of three town halls in New Hampshire Thursday – in Henniker, Milford and Exeter, WMUR reports.

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Several folks who spoke with the news station thought Buttigieg was just great.

“I felt that he’s very eloquent, very articulate, very intelligent and great ideas,” attendee Helen Joyce said. “I think he’s got a good shot at it.”

Buttigieg is leading his Democratic rivals in polling for the Granite State, the second contest in the 2020 primary. Polling averages for the last six weeks put Buttigieg at 18.3 percent, followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren at 17.9 percent, Senator Bernie Sanders at 17 percent, and former vice president Joe Biden at 16.6 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Buttigieg is also in the lead in Iowa, the first primary caucus, with 21.4 percent support, followed by Warren at 19 percent, Sanders at 17.2 percent and Biden at 16.4 percent.

In more diverse early primary states of Nevada and South Carolina, it’s a different story. Biden has a commanding lead of 38 percent in South Carolina, where Buttigieg comes in a distant fourth at 5.7 percent. In Nevada, Biden holds the lead with 29 percent, compared to just 7.3 percent support for Buttigieg, according to FiveThirtyEight’s six week averages.