Former President Trump said he believes abortion should be left to the states in a video released Monday morning clarifying his position after months of mixed messaging and speculation.
“A lot of people have asked me about my position on abortion and abortion rights,” Trump said in the video posted on his Truth Social website. “My view now is that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, and the states will determine that by vote or legislation or perhaps both. Whatever they decide should be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state.”
Trump did not say in the video when he believed abortion should be banned during pregnancy, and he refused to support a national abortion moratorium that Democrats would have used as a cudgel before the November elections. But Trump's endorsement of a patchwork approach leaves him open to linking to the toughest proposed state legislation, something President Biden and his reelection campaign have already worked to achieve.
In the video, Trump again took credit for the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying he was “proudly the person responsible for ending” the constitutional right to abortion, and thanked by name the conservative justices who overturned the ruling. He. She.
While he again expressed support for three exceptions — in cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger — he went on to describe the current legal landscape, with different states imposing different restrictions in the wake of Dobbs v. Dobbs. Women's Health Jackson ruling on June 24, 2022, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
“A lot of countries will be different. A lot of them will have a different number of weeks or some will be more conservative than others, and that's what they will be,” he said. “Ultimately, it's all about the will of the people.”
The announcement drew immediate condemnation from SBA Pro-Life America, one of the country's most prominent groups opposing abortion rights.
“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s stance,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protection and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act.
The Biden campaign said that Trump “supports every state abortion ban, including abortion bans without exception.”
“He brags about his role in creating this hell,” campaign spokesman Ammar Musa said on Channel X.
Trump indicated last month in a radio interview that he was leaning toward supporting a national abortion ban at about 15 weeks of pregnancy — early in the second trimester.
“The number of weeks now, people agree on 15 weeks. And I'm thinking about that,” he told WABC Radio. “And it will come up with something very reasonable. But people, even the hardliners, seem to agree on that, 15 weeks seems to be the number that people agree on.”
Meanwhile, Trump has seemed reluctant to embrace the federal ban.
“Everyone agrees — you've heard this for years — all the jurists on both sides agree: It's a state issue. This shouldn't be a federal issue, it's a state issue.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wrote on his social media site Sunday night that he planned to issue a statement about “abortion rights and abortion” after avoiding questions about when he believes the line should be drawn during pregnancy.
Republican-led states began a wave of new restrictions in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Democrats believe the fight over abortion rights helps them at the ballot box and have outperformed expectations in elections since then.
Trump has long claimed that the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe gave those who oppose abortion rights “tremendous negotiating power.” He said he wants to use that leverage to reach an agreement that he hopes will “make both sides happy” and bring the country “together” — even though the issue is one of the most contentious in American politics, with opponents viewing abortion as murder. Supporters believe it is a basic right for women.
Trump has tried to thread the needle on abortion throughout the campaign. He routinely takes credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, which he called a “moral and unconstitutional atrocity,” and describes himself as “the most pro-life president in American history.”
But he also repeatedly criticized his fellow Republicans for being too militant on the issue, and blamed candidates who did not allow exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when a pregnant woman's life was at risk for the party's losses in November of that year.
“Too many pro-life politicians don't know how to discuss this topic and lose their elections. We've lost a lot of elections because of this, because they didn't know to discuss this. “They had no idea,” he said at the 2023 Concerned Women of America Leadership Summit.
In the video, Trump told Republicans they should “follow their hearts on this issue.” But remember, you must also win elections to restore our culture and, in fact, to save our country, which is currently, very unfortunately, a nation in decline.
Instead, he tried to portray Democrats as the extreme party on the issue.
“We must remember that Democrats are the outliers in this situation,” he said in the video.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Biden's campaign are highlighting the issue as they work to differentiate him from Trump.
Polls have consistently shown that most Americans believe abortion should be legal during the early stages of pregnancy. About half of U.S. adults said abortion should be allowed at the 15-week mark, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research last June.
Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the vast majority of abortions from 2012 to 2021 were performed within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.
The 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to abortion up to the time of viability, about 23 or 24 weeks after pregnancy.
Abortions later in pregnancy are rare, and are often performed because of serious fetal abnormalities, when the mother's life is in danger, or when women face significant delays in accessing the procedure, according to health policy research firm KFF.
Colvin writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
