Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's record on abortion policy couldn't be more different – here's what actions they each took while in office

Abortion is an important, if not an important, step. An issue for many citizens – especially women, in line with polls – ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate in August In 2024, she became a vocal advocate for abortion rights. Specifically, she supports the passage of a federal law by Congress that will subsequently protect the proper to abortion the Supreme Court will overturn in 2022 the landmark Roe vs. Wade rulingwhich recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, alternatively bragged about his nomination three Supreme Court justices who were a part of the court majority that voted in 2022 to desert a constitutional right to abortion. However, in September 2024, Trump said he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion banthereby reversing course from his previous statements. He didn't either Answer a matter throughout the September presidential debate about whether he would veto a bill banning abortions.

Harris and Trump have completely different track records on abortion. As a tutorial, the main target of my scholarship is on Reproductive Health ActHealth law and family law. In this text and within the run-up to the election, I briefly review the broad outlines of every candidate's past positions and actions on the difficulty of abortion.

Harris' abortion record

As California Attorney General Harris was a co-sponsor The Reproductive FACT Actwhich, amongst other things, requires crisis pregnancy centers to tell patients that they usually are not licensed medical facilities and that abortion services can be found elsewhere. These centers are nonprofit organizations that advise pregnant people to not have an abortion, sometimes using deceptive tactics.

Anti-abortion groups sued to dam the law once it went into effect. And in 2018 the USA The Supreme Court struck down the law on First Amendment grounds.

In 2017, Harris investigated the tactics of undercover videographers at Planned Parenthood clinics who tried to entrap doctors through deception and fraud prompted to make controversial, albeit legal, statements and who could have violated the state's secret recording law.

As US Senator Harris was an anti-abortion activist Bills that will have given the fetuses personality rights. None of them ultimately passed.

Conversely, Harris advocated for it various bills that will have protected and developed reproductive rights. For example, in 2019, Harris co-sponsored the Women's Health Protection Actwhich might have established a federal legal right to abortion. It was also not passed.

Finally, during Harris' tenure as vp, the Biden administration has used its executive authority to cut back barriers to abortion access, primarily through federal motion. For example, the Food and Drug Administration repealed a rule in 2021 Prohibited shipping of abortion drugs.

The Department of Health and Human Services Guidelines issued Reaffirming that federal law requires emergency rooms to perform an abortion when medically obligatory to stabilize a patient in need of urgent care.

The Biden-Harris administration also supported federal laws making abortion easier. The Pregnant Workers Fairness ActThe law, which got here into effect in 2023, requires employers to offer break day to an worker within the event of a miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion.

Although the Biden-Harris administration's abortion policy is just not necessarily based solely on the vp, Harris has been on the helm of the administration since Roe's reversal.Fight for reproductive freedoms” tour, during which she advocated for abortion rights across the country. Harris also highlighted the harm being done particularly in 14 states that ban abortion throughout pregnancy or after the sixth week of pregnancy.

Trump's abortion record

During Trump's tenure as president, he supported various changes — in the shape of judicial appointments, federal funding and regulatory actions, a few of which were led by anti-abortion federal officials — geared toward making it harder for people to access abortion care.

Trump began his presidency in 2016 by promising to appoint Supreme Court justices who would accomplish that Overturn Roe v. Wade. He nominated three justices — Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — who joined the bulk opinion Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health OrganizationReversal of Roe in June 2022.

The Senate confirmed by 226 judges who Trump nominated to the lower levels of the federal courts. Trump’s nominations followed a 2016 campaign promise that he would “do it Appoint pro-life judges.” Some were demonstrably against abortionand a few believed that Embryos ought to be treated like children.

From the outset, Trump's administration made a degree of defunding Planned Parenthood clinics, which give abortion care and receive federal funding for other family planning services under the federal Title X program. Trump signed a bill in 2017 allowing states to do that Defund Planned Parenthood clinics and others Organizations that provide abortions, even when the abortion care was not supported by Title X funding.

The Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to interchange it Affordable Care Act and undermine their insurance coverage for contraceptives and their neutral stance on insurance coverage for abortions. Trump supported bills just like the one which never passed American Health Act Limit abortion coverage in private medical health insurance plans.

Trump also appointed several individuals with anti-abortion positions to his administration, including Charmaine Yoestthe previous CEO of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, who served as a senior communications official on the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Trump administration has pushed forward quite a few other anti-abortion measures. For example, the Department of Human and Health Services' 2017 strategic plan defined life as starting at conception — a call that supported funding for crisis pregnancy centers and abstinence-only teaching programs.

Finally, the Trump administration took an anti-abortion approach to foreign policy. Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, also referred to as the Mexico City Policy Global gag rulethat prohibits foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive U.S. funding from performing abortions or referring patients for abortion care elsewhere. As a part of the Mexico City policy, Trump cut $8.8 billion in U.S. foreign aid for foreign programs in 2017 Offer or refer abortions.

In 2017, so did Trump US funding suspended to the United Nations Population Fund, a corporation that focuses, amongst other things, on family planning for low-income people all over the world “Does not promote abortion,” but “supports the right of all women to post-abortion care.” Biden restored funding to the UN agency in 2021.

In the approaching weeks, each candidates can have quite a bit to say on the difficulty of abortion and should refine or change their positions on elements of abortion rights. In assessing what each candidates must say about how their administration will handle abortion, voters should consider what we learn about their past actions.