Trump privately favors a 16-week abortion ban

He doesn’t want to discuss his views openly until he has the GOP nomination.

Former President Donald Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Trump’s deliberations.

Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the middle of 2022, galvanizing Democrats before the midterm elections that year. He has said in private that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest is over to publicly discuss his views, because he doesn’t want to risk alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination, the two people said.

Trump has approached abortion transactionally since becoming a candidate in 2015, and his current private discussions reflect that same approach.

One thing Trump likes about a 16-week federal ban on abortions is that it’s a round number. “Know what I like about 16?” Trump told one of these people, who was given anonymity to describe a private conversation. “It’s even. It’s four months.”

When discussing prospective vice presidential candidates, Trump often asks whether they are “OK on abortion.” He is instantly dismissive when he hears that a Republican doesn’t support “the three exceptions.” He tells advisers that Republicans will keep losing elections with that position.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Trump told advisers that he believed the decision was going to be harmful to Republicans. Since then, he has formed the view that the abortion issue is overwhelmingly responsible for a string of Republican losses in congressional races. And he is acutely aware of his own vulnerability: He appointed the three justices who enabled that decision, a fact he has publicly claimed credit for in several settings. Those statements have already been included in ads, and Democrats plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to remind voters of that fact.

In backing a 16-week ban, Trump would be trying to satisfy both social conservatives who want to further restrict access to abortions and Republican and independent voters who want more modest limits on the procedure.

Abortion is currently banned before 16 weeks in 20 states, including Trump’s home state of Florida. The type of ban that Trump has discussed privately would restrict abortion rights in the remaining 30 states where it is legal beyond that point. And the question of exceptions limited to the life of the mother is also controversial. In Texas, state courts have ruled that women did not qualify for the limited exceptions for “life-threatening conditions” related to pregnancy, even in cases where their fetus faced a severe diagnosis and the woman’s future fertility and health were jeopardized.

In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not address his private remarks.

“As President Trump has stated, adding that he “appointed strong constitutionalist federal judges and Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the decision back to the states, which others have tried to do for over 50 years.”