This morning, Donald Trump issued a video statement on Truth Social in which he announced his support for IVF, bragged about being responsible for ending Roe v. Wade, falsely claimed that post-birth abortions were a thing, falsely claimed that “legal scholars” on both sides wanted Roe overturned, and finally that he would not push for a national abortion ban, but rather leave the issue to the states.
Via CNN:
“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” Trump said in a video posted to his Truth Social account.
“Many states will be different,” Trump continued. “Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”
This likely came as somewhat of a surprise to Republican voters, whom he just spent the last several months of the primary quietly signaling that he would support a 16-week ban.
Already, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation For Adults Who Can’t Read Good has come out with a statement sharing its disappointment in Trump for this change of heart, which, again, miraculously occurred after the Republican primaries were almost over and he had sewn up the nomination.
“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position. Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act,” SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser said.
Lindsey Graham also came out against this newfound position, while sharing some of his own favorite nuggets of abortion misinformation.
“The science is clear — a child at fifteen weeks is well-developed and capable of feeling pain,” he said. “I will continue to advocate that there should be a national minimum standard limiting abortion at fifteen weeks because the child is capable of feeling pain, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence, whom his supporters tried to kill that one time, was also disappointed and full of outright lies.
“The American people elect presidents, senators and congressmen, and a majority of Americans long to see minimum national protections for the unborn in federal law,” he said, lying through his teeth. “But today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life. Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true – human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb. “
For the record, now that abortion bans are no longer a hypothetical, running on “life begins at conception” has not worked out so well for Republicans.
I think it’s pretty clear what Trump is doing here. He supported the ban initially to ensure that he’d win the primary, and is now taking a position he thinks will work better for him in the general. He’s not a true believer in any of this, he just says and does what he thinks will win him the election. It also probably doesn’t hurt that the main Republicans coming out against him (Graham and Pence) are especially unpopular with his base.
Trump knows that one of the things that has spurred Democrats to the polls in recent years is abortion, and this is an attempt to neutralize that. This is what he does. He neutralizes whatever his opponent’s perceived strength is and then also presents himself as the antidote to their weakness. He did it with Hillary Clinton, taking excitement around the idea of the first female president and turning it into a debate about “identity politics,” as well as by, ironically, using some of her more conservative positions against her. That is what he is trying to do now.
And yet, it’s all nothing but rhetoric. The fact is, it’s extremely unlikely that he would actually be able to outright institute a nationwide abortion ban to begin with, just as it has been difficult for us to pass a national law designed to protect the right to it. Even if he were somehow successful in doing that, voters would likely vote out the entire GOP just to get the right back.
But there are other ways to make it inaccessible, which is what the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — the playbook we know he is using — has been primarily focused on.
There are a variety of ways that they intend to limit access to abortion, largely having to do with what we are seeing now, with regards to abortion pills and the Comstock Act. However, if the Supreme Court were to establish that the Comstock Act can still be used to bar anything abortion-related through the mail, the next thing to push for after that is any medical equipment used to perform abortions. This, Politico noted in March, would create more or less a de facto abortion ban.
Prior to Dobbs, there were many places in the United States where abortion was no more accessible than if it had been officially illegal, with that access being continually eroded by rules and regulations. That is what they will go for here, and Trump will help create an environment in which it is possible, without ever signing off on any official national abortion ban.
Abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All isn’t buying his “no national abortion ban” nonsense either.
“Trump is a liar who orchestrated the end of Roe v. Wade—and he’s so proud of it that he bragged about it again in his statement. He knows that publicly supporting bans loses voters, so he deployed dangerous disinformation about abortion in order to distract from the truth about what he will do if elected,” President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. “He’s responsible for the harm and chaos caused by Republicans’ abortion bans in the states, and all he is saying is that he wants more of it.”
Make no mistake — Donald Trump is still a massive threat to reproductive rights, and will erode those rights even further should he get another term as president.
He could also very well decide, as soon as he walks back through the White House doors, that he does want a ban after all.
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