Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday said abortion laws should be determined by U.S. states, stopping short of proposing a national ban and choosing a more moderate stance heading into November's general election.
In a video post on his social media platform, the former U.S. president said he supported exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. He also reiterated that he supports the availability of in-vitro fertilization.
He did not mention pursuing a national ban to prohibit abortions beyond a certain number of weeks into a pregnancy should he return to the White House. Trump, who had previously signalled support for a national abortion ban beyond 15 weeks, emphasized the importance of winning at the ballot box.
"You must follow your heart of this issue. But remember, you must also win elections to restore our culture and in fact, to save our country, which is currently and very sadly a nation in decline," Trump said in the video.
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The Republican Party has struggled to articulate a message to stanch the political fallout from the 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which was made possible by Trump's appointment of three conservative justices to the court while president from 2017 to 2021.
The court opinion laid the stage for several states overturning the court's 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Abortion access is now almost non-existent in southern states due to new laws, nearly all of them backed by Republicans.
"This 50-year battle over Roe v. Wade took it out of the federal hands and brought it into the hearts, minds and vote of the people in each state. It was really something. Now it's up to the states to do the right thing," Trump 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," Trump said. "And whatever they decide must be the law of the land."
Democrats expected to campaign on issue
The clawing back of reproductive freedoms triggered a voter backlash that was widely credited with curbing Republican gains in the 2022 congressional midterm elections and propelling Democrats to victories in some state elections last year.
Democratic President Joe Biden has made Trump's opposition to abortion rights a key tenet of his re-election campaign.
"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," Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Biden campaign, wrote on the X social media platform on Monday.
While Americans tend to accept restrictions on abortion after the first trimester, polls also show that a sizeable majority prefer to have the decision made by the patient and her doctor, not the government.
"With Roe v. Wade overturned, leaving abortion to the states is his way of punting on the issue," said Jeanette Hoffman, a Republican political consultant, about Trump's stance. "Now that the primary is over, there's nothing to be gained from proposing a national abortion ban, as he'll lose support from voters in many swing states."
The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization said it was "deeply disappointed" in Trump's position.
"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," the group said in a statement.
The video also saw Trump repeat his dubious and false claims about late-term abortions and what he called "execution after birth."
"It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position, because they support abortion up to and even beyond the nine month," he said
Just over one per cent of all abortions took place after 21 weeks even before the Dobbs decision, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and those cases often involved either severe fetal anomalies or conditions that endangered the mother.
A rare number of infant deaths occur after what are characterized as failed abortions. It's already a crime to kill babies, but not necessarily a crime to forgo sophisticated medical intervention in cases where severe fetal abnormalities leave a newborn with no chance of survival.
Organizations representing obstetricians and gynecologists say existing laws already provide protections to every healthy newborn, whether born during a failed abortion or under other circumstances.
Trump is the presumptive nominee for his party even after being criminally indicted in four separate cases.
He is scheduled to be the first ex-president to face trial on April 15 in New York, when jury selection begins in a case involving allegations of business records that were falsified in order to hide hush money payments, including two to women who said they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He denies the affairs.
