Trump navigates abortion backlash

On Monday morning, Donald Trump issued a long-awaited statement on abortion — and promptly faced blowback from both sides of the aisle, for very different reasons.

Without explicitly saying whether he would decline a national abortion ban, Trump indicated the decision should be left to the states and reiterated his stance that there should be “exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.”

“Many states will be different, many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be,” Trump said in his Truth Social video. “At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”

Trump, in a follow-up post, also argued that letting states decide while requiring exceptions will take the abortion issue “out of play” in this year’s elections, preventing Republicans from losing “on an issue that should always have been decided by the States.”

The campaign referred additional questions about Trump’s position on a national abortion restriction back to his video.

For many anti-abortion activists, Trump’s statement was a major disappointment. March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said “there remains an urgent need to advocate for the unborn at the federal level;” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who introduced a 15-week abortion restriction bill in 2022, said he ”respectfully disagree[s]” with Trump, adding that the “pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child — not geography.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America was “deeply disappointed” by his position, with President Marjorie Dannenfelser saying that allowing states to decide “cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy;” and Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence called it “a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.”

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump assuaged the apprehensions of anti-abortion groups when “he shirked the recommendations of the GOP consulting class and really leaned in to the pro-life politics of the day,” Emily Erin Davis, SBA’s vice president of communications, told Semafor on Monday. “Now, you see that he’s really leaning into the GOP consulting class because this is exactly what they have been asking him to do and to broadcast widely, which we think is the wrong decision.”

Davis characterized Trump’s statement as “explicitly vague,” though she said it seemed clear that he wanted “to draw a line in the sand on states’ rights.” She argued that Trump declining to clearly support 15-week federal restrictions left room for Joe Biden to attack him.

And attack they did: Biden’s re-election campaign spent Monday going after Trump on his latest abortion comments from the opposite direction.

They argued that he was effectively endorsing the strictest abortion bans across the country and highlighted the fact that he did not explicitly promise not to sign a national abortion ban, while also criticizing the media’s coverage of his comments. The campaign also released a new ad titled “Willow’s Box,” in which a Texas woman describes her near-death experience after being “denied care for a miscarriage because of the state’s abortion ban.”

“We did not hear Donald Trump say he would veto federal legislation that his MAGA Republican allies in Congress and Speaker Johnson have put forward that could ban IVF treatment. We did not hear Donald Trump say he opposes the state bans currently in place which have no exceptions for rape or incest,” the Biden campaign’s deputy communications director Brooke Goren told reporters. “Trump kept his word to overturn Roe in his last term – and he will not rest until he has banned abortion across the entire country. Period. We all know this and the coverage needs to reflect it.”

In a statement, Biden accused Trump of “simply lying” and “scrambling” over concerns that voters will hold him “accountable” for overturning Roe v. Wade: “Well, I have news for Donald. They will,” Biden said.

Amid the criticism, there also emerged some Trump defenders — or, at a minimum, organizations and figures on the right less willing to directly go after the former president for his comments. Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake tweeted that she agreed with Trump and does “NOT support a federal abortion ban.” Some Republican lawmakers, including South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, also voiced support for Trump’s framing on the issue, Fox News Digital reported.

The Faith & Freedom Coalition, while noting that it “will continue to work for the passage of legislation at the state and federal level,” called Trump “the most pro-life president in American history” and expressed appreciation for his “statement reaffirming his pro-life convictions.”

The group’s chairman, Ralph Reed, told Semafor that his group clearly backs any legislation — both state and federal — restricting abortion, but also highlighted how the anti-abortion movement has made “progress” on their beliefs “in a very incremental manner.”

“The reality is that since Dobbs, different candidates have taken different positions. Some support federal legislation, others don’t. We see it as our job at Faith & Freedom to educate and inform Christian voters on where the candidates stand so they can make an informed decision,” Reed said, continuing on to slam Biden’s stance on the issue.

The backlash over Trump’s comments signals just how precarious the topic of abortion remains after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Trump has acknowledged that abortion has been tough for Republicans in recent years, arguing at the start of 2023 that many within the party handled the issue “poorly” and linking their rhetoric and positions to midterm losses. Monday’s statement was a clear attempt at moving past the topic: On Truth Social afterwards, Trump even urged Republicans to “be smart” and not “get distracted.” (Although he did subsequently attack both Graham and Dannenfelser for criticizing him, writing that they “should study the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights” and then help “Republicans to WIN ELECTIONS, rather than making it impossible for them to do so!”)

The criticism, particularly from anti-abortion activists, raises the question of whether Trump will ultimately lose any support from his base. Based on how he framed his position, Trump seems to be banking on the fact that in a matchup against Biden, anti-abortion voters will support him over the alternative: Even if they don’t approve of his current position, he is, as he reiterated Monday, the reason Roe was overturned.

That bet could prove correct: Reed noted that even though his group supports federal legislation, they’re not going to “decline to do our job and turn out the vote with candidates who take a different position.” Similarly, Davis said despite being “incredibly disappointed with Trump’s decision,” that SBA will not “stop encouraging him to understand that national protections for babies in the womb need to be in place to eradicate the scourge of late-term abortion,” because, she argued, “what the Democrats want is far worse.”

• Historically, Trump has held many positions when it comes to abortion, NBC News detailed: From 1999, when he declared he “hates[s] the concept of abortion” but is “very pro-choice,” to 2016 when he suggested “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions, to Monday’s position of leaving restriction decisions to the states.
• Donald Trump’s primary opponents often tried, and failed, to stake out positions to his right on abortion: While some argued for stricter restrictions and a federal ban, Trump spent most of 2023 talking more like a general election candidate looking to move where the swing votes were.