Current Events > Trump declines national abortion law; supports exceptions for rape, incest, life

(+) Yeah! (+)

Former president Donald Trump, who has wavered between highlighting and downplaying his role in curtailing abortion rights, suggested Monday that the politically volatile issue should be left to states, after months of mixed signals about his position.
In a video posted on social media, Trump took credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade but rebuffed pressure to campaign on a national limit. It is now up to the states to do the right thing, he said.
My view is now that we have abortion where everybody 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 the video.
Trump campaigned in 2016 on appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade and became a champion of the antiabortion movement. But he has waffled on the issue since Roe fell in 2022, as Republicans up and down the ballot have paid a political price for unpopular bans. Democrats have made abortion central to their case against Trump, relentlessly reminding voters of his Supreme Court picks who helped end a nationwide right to the procedure.

Trump had promised a statement on abortion last week, as reporters pressed him for his opinion on a six-week ban poised to take effect in Florida. That set off a flurry of last-minute lobbying from abortion opponents who are divided over the best path forward. Some urged Trump to get behind a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, while others warned that such restrictions are a nonstarter in Congress and could further galvanize the left.
On Sunday, he teased an imminent announcement on social media, saying that Republicans, and all others, must follow their hearts and minds, while emphasizing that he supports exceptions to abortion bans for rape, incest and the life of the mother. Trump added, We must use common sense in realizing that we have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation to win elections.
The president of SBA Pro-Life America, a leading antiabortion group, said Monday that it is deeply disappointed in Trumps position. SBA had led the charge in pushing Trump and other presidential candidates to endorse a ban on abortions after 15 weeks.
Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry, the groups president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement.
In response to Trumps statement Monday morning, Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Biden campaign, posted on X: Donald Trump is endorsing every single abortion ban in the states, including abortion bans with no exceptions. And hes bragging about his role in creating this hellscape.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee began his video by affirming his support for in vitro fertilization, a process that fertilizes eggs outside the womb to help produce a pregnancy.
A nationally watched court ruling in Alabama in February threatened to shut down the fertility treatment by holding that frozen embryos are people. Republican candidates largely scrambled to distance themselves from the ruling, though some in Congress have endorsed legislation that would recognize a fertilized egg as a human being entitled to legal protections under the 14th Amendment.
Trumps emphasis on IVF support underscored the issues potential danger to conservatives at the ballot box. He praised Alabama Republicans for quickly passing a law protecting IVF in the state and said that we want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder.
Trump has repeatedly highlighted the political fallout of abortion for Republicans. He has suggested on social media that GOP losses in the 2022 midterms were due to the abortion issue, which he described as poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions.
Trump spent much of the GOP primaries declining to take a firm stance on federal legislation and even described Floridas six-week abortion ban signed by his rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis as a terrible mistake. During a CNN town hall last year, Trump declined to say whether he would sign a federal abortion ban into law and insisted that overturning Roe put the antiabortion movement in a very good negotiating position.
In a September interview on NBC Newss Meet the Press, Trump predicted that both sides will come together. He said the agreement could be state or federal, adding: I dont, frankly, care.
More recently, he said in a March radio interview that people are agreeing on 15 [weeks], and Im thinking in terms of that. But he also said that all the legal scholars on both sides agree: Its a state issue. It shouldnt be a federal issue.
Yet as president, he backed a national 20-week ban that could not pass in Congress and at the time ran afoul of Roe. Under Roe, Americans nationwide had a right to abortion until a fetus was viable outside the womb, often pegged at around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Many antiabortion activists view federal restrictions on abortion as impractical, given the difficulty of securing the 60 Senate votes necessary to overcome a filibuster. A 15-week ban introduced by some Republicans in Congress has gone nowhere. Social conservatives planning for a second Trump term have focused on actions that federal agencies could take without Congress to make abortions harder to obtain.
At the same time, some Republicans have argued that GOP candidates need to talk about abortion more explicitly to avoid ceding the issue to Democrats.
When a court cleared the way last week for Floridas six-week abortion ban to take effect, Trumps campaign gave reporters a statement that made no mention of Trumps role in ending Roe. President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states rights because he supports the voters right to make decisions for themselves, said the statement from campaign adviser Brian Hughes.
Democrats rushed to remind voters of Trumps record. On social media, President Biden drew attention to Trumps past statement that without me, there would be no 6 weeks.
You already made your statement, Donald, Biden wrote last week after Trump promised to address abortion further.

Trump added, We must use common sense in realizing that we have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation to win elections.

Is there a single red state that made a rape exception abortion law work? The legal process of making a rape victim prove she was raped before an abortion occurs sounds like a nightmare.

Until next week when he tells people there should be a national abortion ban with no exceptions. lol

In other words, he thinks women only deserve rights in blue states, and not in red states.

Because the blue states have the strength to fight off these draconian laws so he know he cant win em all

In other words, he thinks women only deserve rights in blue states, and not in red states.

Abortion issue wouldn't be this mess up, if not for him.

Trump forced RBG to not retire?

Trump forced RBG to not retire?

Trump added, We must use common sense in realizing that we have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation to win elections.

Trump forced RBG to not retire?

Is this one of those things where we're not supposed to blame Republicans for a thing that Republicans actively and purposely did and instead blame the Democrats for it because reasons?

"Return abortion to the states"

"we need a national abortion ban."

https://bsky.app/profile/mjsdc.bsky.social/post/3kpmsnx6fc52f

Figures. Several Republicans started talking about national abortion bans not long after Roe was overturned. There's no reason to think that now they're suddenly cool with some states still having abortion access.

Trump just says words at this point like he's an AI program or Shaq. There's no actual thought behind them

lol

Figures. Several Republicans started talking about national abortion bans not long after Roe was overturned. There's no reason to think that now they're suddenly cool with some states still having abortion access.

That doesn't matter. This statement is enough for voters to forget what Trump and Republicans did and want and get people to vote for him.

Honestly, the fact that Republicans have pushed it back as far as they have is already insane - Trump further supporting it is whatever for now. I'm sure there's plenty of "the base" that would love for him to go full hog, but anti-abortion to that extent is NOT the populous opinion in the US, and you lose a lot of moderates w/ that.

Trump will almost assuredly still win in the general, but still like this doesn't help him, at least not much.

80% of the nation supports abortion rights and only 13% want a total national ban. They're appealing to a Christo-fascist minority at the expense of everybody else because that's their most diehard base.

It hasn't helped them in recent elections and I see no reason why it would help them in future ones.

It isn't that it'll help them, they're terrified that if they can't get the evangelicals out, then they're going to see what happened in Alabama happen everywhere.

The IVF debacle in AL showed us this, unless that's what you were referencing. I thought it was about the recent Dem victory with the like 22 point swing.

The whole situation is such a can of worms, it should be obvious why abortion should just be a thing. Because if the only legal ways to get an abortion are incest and rape, then you're inevitably going to get a fuck ton of false accusations made out of desperation (not even necessarily malice). <_<

Also, TC, this isn't so much a jab at you as it is the corporate mainstream media, however in that ad/video Trump doesn't actually say he wouldn't sign a national abortion ban, even though that's how our useless media kept framing it.

Joe Biden 2 days in a row, in contrast, explicitly stated if a national abortion ban reached his desk he would veto it.