In his most direct position on a sensitive and divisive political subject in the United States, former president Donald Trump stated on Monday that states should have the power to decide on abortion rights.
Now that abortion is legal where it was always intended to be, the decision will ultimately rest with the states, either through a vote or new law, or maybe even both. And their decision is final and binding on all citizens. According to Trump, “in this case, the law of the state” (Truth Social, video).
“A lot of states will be different,” Trump went on to say. The amount of weeks will vary from person to person, and some will be more conservative than others. The people’s will is what matters most in the end.
A 15-week federal ban, with certain exceptions for incest, rape, and situations when the mother’s life is in risk, was something Trump had previously indicated he could back. His choice to leave the politically contentious matter to the states rather than support a nationwide ban was, however, immediately criticised by a prominent anti-abortion rights group, which claimed he did not go far enough.
Taking the issue “out of the federal hands and into the hearts, minds, and vote of the people in each state,” Trump claimed in Monday’s video that he was “proudly the person responsible” for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The ex-president did not specify how many weeks into a pregnancy he believed it would be reasonable to outlaw abortion, but he did state his continued support for specific exemptions. He has already spoken out against six-week state restrictions on abortion, calling them “terrible,” and he has admitted that Republicans have been struggling politically because to the abortion question ever since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling removed federal safeguards for the operation.
After a recent verdict by the state’s supreme court, Florida’s six-week abortion ban is about to become law. Last week, when asked about the matter, Trump informed reporters that he would be making a “statement” on the matter.
A prominent anti-abortion organisation, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, swiftly reacted negatively to Trump’s video on Monday. The group has previously set a 15-week national ban as its threshold for Republican presidential candidates.
The stance taken by President Trump has left us feeling quite let down. National campaigning and protections against the abortion industry’s cruelty are necessary for the sake of unborn infants and their mothers. The group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, stated that the Dobbs ruling clearly gives states and Congress the authority to take action.
Despite his “respectfully” disagreeing with the former president, Trump friend Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stated, “the pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child – not geography.”
Following his October withdrawal from the Republican presidential race, Mike Pence, the former vice president, took to social media to criticise his former boss’s statement, calling it a “retreat on the Right to Life” and a “slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.”
In his subsequent Monday social media post, Trump retaliated against the criticism.
“Lindsey, Marjorie, and others fought for years, unsuccessfully, until I came along and got the job done,” the former president remarked on his Truth Social platform. “We must not allow our nation to incur any additional harm by losing elections over a matter that rightfully belonged to the states and will now be decided by them!”
Trump made the incorrect assertion in his video that “all legal scholars, both sides” sought to have Roe v. Wade overturned and that “abortion where everybody wanted it, from a legal standpoint.” The repeal of the historic 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion statewide was opposed by many pro-choice academics and the vast majority of Americans polled.
A changing position
Trump’s distortions on the topic of abortion date back to his early political endeavours. In 1999, after launching his exploratory committee for president, Trump appeared on “Meet the Press” on NBC and declared himself to be “very pro-choice.”
The idea of abortion is abhorrent to me…. He remained firm in his belief in free will, nevertheless.
In 2016, as he sought the Republican nomination for president, Trump made an effort to disassociate himself from the comment in order to appease conservatives and doubtful anti-abortion figures. He promised to remove Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court by adding conservative justices. During a memorable exchange in the Republican race, Trump stated that women who have abortions should be punished in some way if they were illegal. In the face of immediate criticism, his team recanted the statement; nonetheless, Trump then claimed that doctors, and not women, should be held “legally responsible” in such a case.
Despite Trump’s most recent effort to clarify his position, Democrats will continue to link the presumed Republican presidential nominee to a slew of anti-abortion legislation enacted following the landmark Dobbs decision, which was made possible by the former president fulfilling his promise to reform the Supreme Court. (Three of the justices who sided with the majority and voted to reverse Roe v. Wade were appointed by Trump.)
“Donald Trump made it clear once again today that he is – more than anyone in America – the person responsible for ending Roe v. Wade,” President Joe Biden said in a campaign statement Monday. To a greater extent than any American, he is to blame for the brutality and anarchy that have befallen the United States ever since the Dobbs ruling.
The second-most populous state in the US, Texas, is one of fourteen states that prohibit abortion in most circumstances. Abortions are illegal in seven more states between the ages of six and eighteen weeks. This includes Trump’s native Florida, where a ban on abortions after six weeks will be enforced soon.
On Monday, Trump restated his support for limited abortion access, but he did not propose nationwide legislation to protect mothers from imminent danger or victims of rape or incest. When it comes to rape and incest, many states that have outright banned abortion do not make any exceptions. Some even go so far as to demand that assault victims find police reports as proof of their attacks.
Furthermore, there are no universal rules on how to identify the signs that a woman’s health is at jeopardy. Numerous states have recently passed laws restricting abortion, and doctors in these areas are scrambling to interpret these unclear rules in order to avoid losing their medical licences or perhaps going to jail.
As it is, one-third of American women are subject to extremely harmful bans that endanger their lives and put doctors at risk of prosecution just for practicing medicine, all because of Donald Trump. And Biden warned on Monday that the situation will only worsen.
Against this backdrop, pro-choice activists are working to secure constitutional protections for abortion on the ballot in states around the nation this fall. Voters in certain states will decide the destiny of abortion access, according to Trump’s Monday address.
A bill to expand access to abortion will be on Trump’s Florida ballot in November, but he has not yet stated his stance on the matter.
