After months spent refusing to stake out a clear position on abortion, Donald Trump announced Monday that he believes the issue should be left to the states to adjudicate, implicitly rejecting a federal ban of the kind that many pro-life activists and lawmakers have embraced in the wake of the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In a video message posted to Truth Social, the former president took credit for the 2022 Dobbs decision and suggested that “everybody” is satisfied with the current state of abortion jurisprudence.
“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.
“Many states will be different. Many states will have a different number of weeks…at the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.”
The former president went on to stipulate that he supports exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother.
In announcing his support for a federalist approach to abortion law, Trump seems to have spurned the federal 15-week abortion ban championed by some of his most vocal supporters, including Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and former White House aide Kellyanne Conway, though he did not explicitly say what he would do if Congress sent him federal abortion legislation in his second term as president.
Trump’s announcement comes after months of uncertainty surrounding his stance on an issue that is set to dominate the general election. After the New York Times reported that he’d privately expressed support for a 16-week federal abortion ban, Trump’s campaign dismissed the reporting as “fake news.” Shortly thereafter, Graham told NBC News that “Trump is warming up to 16 weeks.” Trump then appeared to confirm Graham’s comments, saying publicly that he’d support a 15-week ban.
While Trump often takes credit for ensuring a pro-life conservative majority on the Supreme Court through his appointment of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, he has also chastised fellow Republicans for embracing what he sees as a politically toxic, hardline approach to abortion policy.
“A lot of politicians who are pro-life do not know how to discuss this topic and they lose their election. We had a lot of election losses because of this, because they didn’t know to discuss it. They had no idea,” he said last year at a leadership summit of the Concerned Women of America.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading pro-life group that advocates a federal 15-week abortion ban, cast Trump’s announcement as a concession to the abortion-rights movement, arguing that Democrats will use the federal government to erode state-level pro-life laws in the absence of Republican action in Washington, D.C.
“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.,” the statement reads. “Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights. With lives on the line, SBA Pro-Life America and the pro-life grassroots will work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme congressional Democrats.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also used the Monday announcement to express support for in vitro fertilization, pushing back on Democrats’ attempt to cast the Republican party as opposed to the procedure on pro-life grounds.
“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life and the side of mothers, fathers and their beautiful babies. IVF is an important part of that,” Trump said.
In the wake of the Dobbs decision, twelve Republican-led states have passed legislation restricting access to abortion. But abortion appears to be on the rise despite the new state-level restrictions, as women increasingly turn to mail-order abortion pills or interstate travel to gain access to the procedure.