In his much-hyped "statement on abortion" today, Trump again took credit for appointing three of the five justices who overturned Roe—without facing its consequences.Pedro Portal/El Nuevo Herald/ZUMA
Donald Trump wants to pretend he isn’t to blame for the devastating consequences of overturning of Roe v. Wade—even as he boasts about being responsible for the momentous Supreme Court decision.
In a more than four-minute-long video released on Truth Social this morning the presumptive Republican nominee attempted to clarify his nebulous stance on abortion rights. It remained confounding.
Trump took credit for overturning Roe and said he wants to leave abortion rights “to the states,” seemingly rebuking prior reporting that he’d support a 16-week national ban if re-elected. (Trump didn’t specifically say what he’d do if Congress passed a national ban and sent it to his desk as president). He also insisted on his support for exceptions for “rape, incest and life of the mother”—but didn’t make clear how he’d square that with his insistence on states’ rights to come up with their own abortion policy. (The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarification on these points.)
This is, for all intents and purposes, a mish-mash of policies that sound fine but do not actually make sense in practice.
After all, it’s thanks to Trump—who appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe—that 14 states have enacted almost total bans on abortion. And in 2016, the former president said there “has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
“There has to be some form of punishment [for a woman who obtains an abortion].”
Trump in 2016.
Now he’s trying to dodge the issue—after bragging of ending Roe.
Who’s going to fall for this? https://t.co/p25GodRKWB https://t.co/o1Ze0i3CHn
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 8, 2024
Trump also failed to acknowledge that abortion opponents, including many Republicans, are currently seeking to dramatically restrict access to medication abortion at the Supreme Court, and have also floated invoking the Comstock Act—a 19th-century anti-obscenity law that remains on the books—to enact a federal ban on abortion. (The campaign also didn’t respond to a request for comment on Trump’s stance on these issues.)
So, Trump’s much-hyped “statement on abortion” didn’t actually clarify much at all: he’s essentially saying that, if re-elected, he wants to preserve the status quo, which is his doing, and has resulted in abortion bans spreading throughout the country.
In fact, let’s review just some of what that decision has wrought:
But listening to Trump, you wouldn’t know any of this: he tried to cast Democrats as extremists through a litany of lies:
As Ammar Moussa, the director of rapid response for President Biden’s re-election campaign, pointed out in a post on X: “Donald Trump is endorsing every single abortion ban in the states, including abortion bans with no exceptions. And he’s bragging about his role in creating this hellscape.”
Trump, essentially, wants to have it both ways: he wants credit for Dobbs, while also ignoring its consequences and casting Democrats as extremists. And it seems to be working. Polling has showed voters don’t necessarily hold Trump responsible for overturning Roe. But they should: in the video, Trump said that he’s “proudly the person responsible” for the Dobbs decision.
Still, for the far-right that isn’t enough. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said the organization is “deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats,” Dannenfelser said in the statement.
Ultimately, Trump didn’t announce anything new today—he just affirmed what we already know: abortion rights are currently left to the states, he won’t take ownership of the confusion and mayhem that Dobbs has wrought, and he’ll keep spreading false information about abortion. And, perhaps most importantly: abortion rights are on the ballot this November.
Trump Helped Overturn Roe. Now He Wants to Run Away From the Consequences.
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08.04.2024
In his much-hyped "statement on abortion" today, Trump again took credit for appointing three of the five justices who overturned Roe—without facing its consequences.Pedro Portal/El Nuevo Herald/ZUMA
Donald Trump wants to pretend he isn’t to blame for the devastating consequences of overturning of Roe v. Wade—even as he boasts about being responsible for the momentous Supreme Court decision.
In a more than four-minute-long video released on Truth Social this morning the presumptive Republican nominee attempted to clarify his nebulous stance on abortion rights. It remained confounding.
Trump took credit for overturning Roe and said he wants to leave abortion rights “to the states,” seemingly rebuking prior reporting that he’d support a 16-week national ban if re-elected. (Trump didn’t specifically say what he’d do if Congress passed a national ban and sent it to his desk as president). He also insisted on his support for exceptions for “rape, incest and life of the mother”—but didn’t make clear how he’d square that with his........
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