Trump tries to unburden himself of abortion albatross
Abortion may be the biggest threat to Donald Trump's political come‐ back. Like an albatross he personally helped set loose. Now he's trying to wriggle from its clutches.
The former president has released his long-awaited statement on abortion policy and its evident objective is to defuse this as an election is‐ sue.
It consists of two parts: Leave abortion decisions to individual states, and warn those states that adopting a total ban is a political loser.
So even as he took credit for ending the constitutional right to an abortion, and as he applauded the judges he appointed for doing so in 2022, Trump asked his party to be pragmatic.
He urged states to be le‐ nient in cases of rape, or in‐ cest, or when an abortion might save the life of the mother, unlike the more se‐ vere bans already in effect in several states.
"You must follow your heart on this issue, But re‐ member: You must also win elections," Trump said in a video he released Monday.
Abortion bans unpopu‐ lar
The political math behind Trump's position is obvious.
Americans mostly dislike the abortion bans that have been unleashed across the U.S. South and elsewhere in more than a dozen states since the 2022 Supreme
Court decision.
Since then, Democrats have been outperforming ex‐ pectations in byelections, midterm elections and refer‐ endums on the issue.
By a 26-point gap, Pew Re‐ search found last year that Americans would rather see abortion be legal in all or most cases, than see it be il‐ legal.
In this tight presidential race, Trump would rather have voters focused on his own favoured issues: infla‐ tion and the porous southern border.
There's no guarantee his gambit will work.
A plethora of factors will keep pushing abortion back into the news, and onto the president's desk: ongoing
court cases, complex federalstate issues, referendums and personal anecdotes.
It took just one day for real-world events to illustrate that point.
In the key presidential swing state of Arizona, a court on Tuesday re-imposed a near-total ban on abortion that dates back to 1864. Voters will likely be asked to weigh in on it in a referen‐ dum during the November election.
It's disingenuous for Trump now to dissociate himself from the conse‐ quences of his own decision to appoint anti-abortion judges, said a lawyer who works on the issue.
WATCH | Arizona court re‐ instates dormant abortion ban:
Trump's position 'utter garbage,' says advocate
"This is the president who let the horse out of the barn. Let it run away. And now he's saying, 'Maybe next year I'll buy you a pony.' It is utter garbage," said Julie F. Kay, lawyer, author and executive director of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine Access.
Trump, she says, is trying to make voters forget this is an election issue.
For example, the presi‐ dent gets to appoint the leaders of U.S. agencies that affect access to abortion medication: like the Food and Drug Administration (which approves it and allows it to be prescribed online) and the U.S. Postal Service (which al‐ lows it to be shipped into an‐ ti-abortion states).
The issue is a potential vote-driver. And not just in the presidential race.
There are also myriad elections this fall at the state level - for politicians, judges, prosecutors and attorneys general; there are also refer‐ endums planned, including in presidential swing states, and in states that could decide control of Congress.
"Every election is impor‐ tant around abortion rights in this day and age," Kay said. "But this one in particular is very important."
Ongoing court cases
Meanwhile, there are also ongoing court cases. The Supreme Court just heard one and will hear another.
Anti-abortion activists are trying to overturn federal ap‐ proval of the abortion pill mifepristone, although in a recent hearing the judges sounded unlikely to agree.
The court will soon hear case from Idaho about whether emergency-room doctors can refuse to per‐ form abortions in an emer‐
agency.
WATCH | The Supreme Court to weigh in on abor‐ tion pill access:
Meanwhile, some Supreme Court judges have mused aloud that shipments of the abortion pill could be halted under the 151-yearold Comstock Act: the 1873 anti-pornography law forbids mailing "lewd, lascivious" ma‐ terials.
"It sounds as antiquated as my grandmother's corset," said Kay, expressing disbelief that this is even up for dis‐ cussion.
As for the Idaho emer‐ gency-room case, she said it's not an ER doctor's business: "Their job is to save lives and people's health. Not judge them. Not like, you know, 'If you were drunk driving, I'm not gonna treat you because I'm so opposed to this.' "
Then there are individual cases.
Texas woman appears in Biden ad
Like a Texas woman who had a miscarriage and couldn't get an abortion afterward. She nearly died and fears she'll never conceive again because of damage to her re‐ productive system.
She's now in a Joe Biden campaign video. It was first aired on Monday, after Trump made his abortion an‐ nouncement.
WATCH | Biden cam‐ paign ad featuring Texas woman's story:
It's a raw, emotional ad. In it, Amanda Zurawski starts weeping as she shows off some of the items she pur‐ chased for her baby, while screen captions tell her story.
The ad concludes with: "Donald Trump did this," re‐ ferring to the abortion bans that swept across U.S. states, including 14 total statewide bans.
Will Trump succeed at nul‐ lifying the issue? The answer could very well decide the 2024 presidential election.
His move Monday elicited mixed reactions from his own side. Some moderate Repub‐ licans were pleased. His former vice-president, Mike Pence, was not, calling it a slap in the face to religious conservatives, like him, who supported Trump.
On the left, there were complaints about the news media giving Trump exactly what he wanted out of this: A favourable headline.
Abortion, immigration will swing votes: Poll‐ ster
One pollster calls abortion a particularly thorny issue for Republicans. As immigration is for Democrats.
"Those two issues will draw the most blood," said Tim Malloy, an analyst for
Quinnipiac University polls.
His own polls suggest a mere three per cent of Amer‐ icans identify abortion as their top election issue, far behind the economy, immi‐ gration and preserving democracy.
But he says it remains more electorally potent than that number suggests.
He credited it for Democ‐ rats' better-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterms, when they defied polls to hold the U.S. Senate, nearly hold the House and gain in state legislatures.
Abortion will stay in the news, Malloy predicted. As an example, he pointed to two court decisions in Florida just rendered on the same day.
One will trigger a six-week abortion ban in the state on May 1. Another will allow a referendum to change the state constitution to guaran‐ tee abortion access.
It will be on the ballot this fall, down the very same bal‐ lot as the presidential vote. It's given Democrats new hope that they might be competitive in a state they've recently written off.
"The right to choose is, I would think, the most viscer‐ al issue in America and the overturning [of] Roe v. Wade set fire to it," Malloy said.
"The fire's still burning."