Donald Trump said on Monday that he wanted to give American states a free hand to legislate on abortion, remaining faithful to jurisprudence of which he is the architect while cautiously renouncing a nationwide ban which could cost him dearly at home. presidential.
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“States will determine by vote or by law, or perhaps both. Whatever their decision, it must have the force of law,” he said in a video published on his Truth Social platform, after months of back and forth on the subject.
As a candidate again in November against Democrat Joe Biden, Donald Trump himself prides himself on having, through his appointments of judges to the Supreme Court of the United States, resulted in the reversal of jurisprudence of June 2022 which canceled the federal guarantee of the right to abortion.
Since this decision giving the 50 States full latitude to legislate in this area, around twenty have banned or severely restricted access to abortion.
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“Many (states) will have a different number of weeks” as the pregnancy limit for an abortion, the Republican explained in his video. “Some will be more conservative than others, and that’s how it is. At the end of the day, it is the will of the people that counts.”
Donald Trump also accused Democrats of being in favor of abortion until the last months of pregnancy, and “even execution after birth”. An unfounded assertion.
In his four-minute video, the Republican presidential candidate in November does not mention the possibility of establishing a nationwide ban, preferring to maintain a certain caution on this highly electorally sensitive issue.
“Slap”
Abortion has been a battleground of the conservative movement for several decades, but its ban has proven greatly unpopular with the general American public in several recent elections.
Joe Biden did not fail to have fun with his rival’s balancing act. “Trump got himself entangled,” said the president in a statement from his campaign team.
Donald Trump “fears that voters will hold him accountable” in the presidential election because of his “responsibility” in the end of the federal guarantee of the right to abortion, Joe Biden said. “Well I have some news, Donald. This will be the case.”
The Democrat’s campaign team released a clip on Monday denouncing Donald Trump’s role in the current situation of abortion rights in the United States. The video tells the story of a Texan woman who was refused an abortion despite a miscarriage at 18 weeks of pregnancy, and the after-effects of this refusal.
The civil liberties association ACLU denounced the ambiguity of Donald Trump’s statements, accusing him of “trying to hide his game”.
Donald Trump’s former vice president, the very religious Mike Pence, called the billionaire’s statements a “slap in the face” to the millions of abortion opponents who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.
The anti-abortion association Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life, for its part, expressed its “deep disappointment”.
“The unborn and their mothers deserve to be defended and protected at the national level in the face of the brutality of the abortion industry,” declared its president Marjorie Dannenfelser in a press release.
Referendums
In March, Donald Trump first indicated that he could support a national ban beyond 15 or 16 weeks.
But he also felt that it was not up to the federal administration to decide on this question, warning against the electoral cost of an overly conservative position.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, conservatives have lost every referendum or ballot measure addressing the issue of abortion.
And this even in states that are usually theirs, like Ohio or Kansas.
The Democrats, for their part, are capitalizing on this hot topic, which has made them a winning machine — at least in local elections.
Vice-President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s running mate, regularly travels to American campuses in the most contested states in the election to discuss abortion.
The Democrats also encouraged the organization, on the same day as the presidential election, of mini-referendums on abortion in several states which will be decisive during this election (Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania).
