Forget what you think you may know about President Trump’s stand on abortion. Much like his appointed Justices that overturned Roe V. Wade, the former President believes there should be no Constitutional right to abortion, and it’s a matter best left up to the states.
Allies say Trump believes states should rule on reproductive rights, and he has seen the writing on the wall that supports for a federal abortion ban could cost him the 2024 election should he be the GOP nominee.
According to unnamed “insiders,” Trump has told allies in recent days that his gut feeling remains to leave the matter of reproductive rights to the states – following the court’s reasoning in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended 50 years of federal abortion protections.
But Trump’s crystallizing stance appears to be his recognition that a federal abortion ban could cost him in the 2024 election should he become the Republican nominee, mainly because a majority of Americans simply do not support making abortion mostly or entirely illegal.
If this is truly the former President’s thinking, it has no doubt been influenced, at least in part, by Republicans’ losses in the midterm elections they were supposed to dominate, which exit polls showed were tied to the supreme court ruling. And in the six states where abortion-related questions were on the ballot in 2022, voters chose to reject further limits.
The issue has emerged as an early litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, and Trump’s reluctance to endorse national restrictions would put him squarely at odds with prominent leaders of the anti-abortion movement who are demanding federal action.
Yet his refusal to embrace the most hardline position of party activists provides an opening for potential rivals such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his former vice-president Mike Pence to run to his right on the abortion issue.
Trump has talked about striking a balance, people close to him said: leaving abortion up to the states while endorsing exceptions for rape, incest, and in cases of harm to the mother, as well as appointing conservative judges to the federal bench and removing federal funds for Planned Parenthood, which he did as President.
Asked about Trump’s stance on abortion for 2024, the campaign reiterated his White House policies: “President Trump believes that the supreme court, led by the three justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the state level.”