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Journalism of Courage
On Monday (April 8), Donald Trump said he believes abortion limits should be left to individual states to decide, and declined to endorse a national abortion ban in the United States.
In a video posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, he said: “Whatever they [states] decide must be the law of the land, and in this case, the law of the state,” and added that he was “strongly in favour of exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
“Many states will be different… At the end of the day, it’s all about the will of the people… that’s what we want,” the Republican presidential candidate said.
Disappointing his base
This comes even as there has been a growing clamour within the conservative Republican base for a national ban on abortion. Thus, many were left deeply disappointed by Trump’s Monday statement — his clearest articulation of his position on the topic post the striking down of Roe vs Wade, something which he also took credit for in his speech.
“I respectfully disagree with President Trump’s statement that abortion is a states’ rights issue,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham posted on X in response to Trump’s statement. “[T]he pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child — not geography,” Graham wrote.
The conservative-majority US Supreme Court struck down its landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade judgement, which made the abortion a constitutional right, in June 2022. Since then, 15 Republican-governed states have banned nearly all abortion, the latest being Arizona where the state Supreme Court recently revived a 160-year-old law which even allows for the prosecution of doctors.
However, the pro-life Republican base continues to push for a national abortion ban, which would extend to Democrat-ruled states as well, many of which are pro-choice. Currently, women from Red states can still travel to Blue states to get an abortion, although high costs, and new state laws act as a barrier.
With eyes on the election, a political gambit
Experts believe that Trump’s Monday statement was a political gambit, made with the upcoming presidential elections in mind. While there is definitely a loud section of Republicans who want an abortion ban, there are also many moderates and fence-sitters who deeply care about the issue, and are alarmed by the party’s extreme position.
“Trump himself recognizes the political liability of the abortion issue,” Alice Stewart, a veteran GOP operative told Politico. “You can be pro-life, you can be anti-abortion, but you also have to recognise the political reality of this issue when you’re talking about appealing to independent voters and an electorate that is more broad than the Republican primary base,” she said.
Moreover, for Democratic President Joe Biden, vying for a second term in office, the abortion issue will hopefully galvanise the Democratic base to vote for him. Biden, who continues to get pummelled by a section of the Democratic electorate over his position viz a viz Israel, currently trails Trump in most polls, and will hope that the issue will help swing the elections.
“Inside the Biden campaign and across the Democratic Party, officials see a potential silver bullet that they hope supersedes all of the president’s challenges in his rematch against former president Donald Trump: abortion rights,” The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Following Trump’s statement, Florida’s regressive six-week abortion ban, and developments in Arizona this week, Democrats ramped up their attack on Trump over this issue. For example, Biden’s team released a 60-second ad looking at a woman’s near death experience for being denied an abortion. The ad concludes: “Donald Trump did this.”
Unlike many in his party, Trump does not seem to be particularly ideological when it comes to abortion. While his latest statement has been seen by some as a moderation of his position, it does not guarantee that he will not change his mind when he deems it beneficial.
“The question is not: ‘Is this a sustainable position?’ The question about Donald Trump is: [Is] he going to sustain this position?” Danielle Pletka, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Politico.
Trump has also been notoriously unclear on his position on the matter, making contradictory statements at the same time.
For instance, wrote in his book The America We Deserve (2000) that while he “did not like the idea of an abortion”, he “supported a woman’s right to choose”. In the same book, he also said he supported a national abortion ban, after speaking to doctors on the issue.
As recently as February, Trump privately told advisers he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, The New York Times had reported. He told his aides he wanted to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest was over to publicly discuss his views, the report said. However, the Trump campaign slammed the reporting as “fake news” at the time.
