NEW YORK (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance says Donald Trump wouldn’t support a nationwide abortion ban if elected president and would veto such laws if it landed on his desk.
“I can absolutely guarantee that,” Vance said when asked on NBC's “Meet the Press” if he could prohibit Trump from making such a ban. “Donald Trump's view is that we want the individual states, with their respective cultures and their respective political sensitivities, to make these decisions because we don't want a perpetual conflict at the federal level over this issue.”
The Ohio senator also stressed that Trump, the previous president and this 12 months's Republican candidate, would veto such a bill if it were passed by Congress.
“I mean, if you don't support it as president of the United States, you basically have to veto it,” he said in an interview that aired Sunday.
Vance's comments come after Democrats at their national convention in Chicago last week attacked Trump night after night for his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, ending the constitutional right to abortion within the United States and paving the best way for bans and restrictions in Republican-led states.
But efforts to neutralize a difficulty that Democrats hope will mobilize voters in the autumn also risk alienating parts of Trump's electoral base that oppose abortion rights.
“God have mercy on this nation if this is now the position of the former pro-life party,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in a post Sunday with a link to an article about Vance's comments.
While Trump has repeatedly boasted about his role in overturning the Roe decision, in recent days he has dismissed warnings from Democrats that he would go further and restrict access to information if he were to win a second term.
“My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday, adopting the language of abortion rights activists and the left.
His comments sparked a wave of criticism from anti-abortion groups, including the editor of the conservative National Review, which published an article titled “Trump Has Completely Abandoned Pro-Lifers.”
Trump repeated his claim hours later at an event in Las Vegas.
“I am a strong supporter of women's reproductive rights. I am a strong supporter of IVF (in vitro fertilization). We are leaders here. And I think people see that,” he told reporters.
The Democrats reacted to Trump with great skepticism.
“American women are not stupid, and we will not entrust the future of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about denying women across the country access to abortion,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told NBC.
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., a Trump ally, waved off an issue about how Trump can be “great” on the problem of reproductive rights.
“You'll have to ask him. I would say President Trump has been a very good pro-life president,” he said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
“Pro-lifers,” Graham said, “have stood up for the welfare of the child and offered the mother alternatives to abortion.” Graham said, “This movement will continue even after his death.”
Trump has often struggled to speak about abortion. Before entering politics, he described himself as “very pro-choice.” Earlier this 12 months, he wrestled along with his stance on a federal abortion ban, at one point hinting that he would support such a ban starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in peril. He then settled on his current position: that restrictions must be left to individual states.
Trump has not commented on how he intends to vote in an upcoming referendum on the six-week travel ban in Florida.
In an interview with CBS News earlier this week, Trump said he “does not regret” his role in overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling. But after months of confusing statements, he said he wouldn’t use a federal law called the Comstock Act to ban the distribution of medication used as alternatives to surgical abortions, something a few of his allies have called for and something Vance has supported prior to now.
“We will discuss the details, but in general, no,” he said. “I wouldn't do that.”
“It will be available and it is now. And as far as I know, the Supreme Court has said, 'Let it continue as before.' I will advocate for that and agree with the Supreme Court, but basically they have said, let it continue as before,” he said.
Since the Roe decision in the summertime of 2022, the problem of abortion has been a robust motif for Democrats, and the party expects it to play a key role again this 12 months.
On the stage on the Democratic National Convention, women told harrowing personal stories of being forced to hold non-viable pregnancies and being denied miscarriage care, jeopardizing their future fertility.
Trump, reacting to the speech in real time, falsely insisted that “everyone, Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives, wanted Roe v. Wade to be ended and returned to the States.”
“I do not restrict access to contraception or IVF – THAT'S A LIE, these are all false stories she makes up,” he wrote. “I TOO TRUST WOMEN AND I WILL STAND UP FOR THEM'S PROTECTION!”
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