Trump says abortion laws should be left to the states

Candidate firms up his take on hot-button issue.

Former President Donald Trump said in a video statement Monday that abortion rights should be left up to the states, remarks that came after months of mixed signals on an issue that he and his advisers have worried could cost him dearly in the election.

Trump said his view was that the states should decide through legislation, and that “whatever they decide must be the law of the land, and in this case, the law of the state.”

But he added that he was “strongly in favor of 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 the video, which he posted on his Truth Social website.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about will of the people,” he added. “That’s where we are right now and that’s what we want — the will of the people.”

Trump appeared to be trying to move past the issue of abortion rights as quickly as possible without discussing a federal ban, which would face steep odds in the House and Senate. He has privately discussed supporting such a ban.

But politically, Trump’s announcement that abortion should be left to the states will allow Democrats to tag him with some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, including a six-week ban in Florida that he has said was a “terrible mistake.”

And his remarks Monday underscored how Republicans across the country are grappling with their approach to abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a few months before the midterm elections.

In a statement, President Joe Biden accused Trump, who appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices who were pivotal in overturning Roe, of fostering “cruelty” and “chaos” surrounding abortion in the wake of the decision. He added that Trump’s position was effectively an endorsement of states that had passed tougher abortion restrictions, including six-week bans.

Biden also contended that Trump, despite his statement, would be likely to back a federal abortion ban if he won in November. “If Donald Trump is elected and the MAGA Republicans in Congress put a national abortion ban on the Resolute Desk, Trump will sign it into law,” Biden said.

In the video, Trump said he was “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe and eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years. Trump falsely claimed that “all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and in fact demanded” that Roe should be ended.

He then falsely claimed that Democrats wanted babies “executed after birth.”

For months, Trump has debated with advisers what he should say about abortion to stop Democrats from using the issue against him in November, as they did so successfully to outperform expectations against Republicans in the 2022 midterms.

Some anti-abortion activists had pushed Trump to support a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks, to set a minimum national standard and to block later-term abortions in Democratic-controlled states.

“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act.”

She added, “Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats.”