Trump tells anti-abortion activists to stay united for 2020
WASHINGTON — With Alabama’s restrictive new abortion law stirring divisions on the right, President Donald Trump implored anti-abortion activists to stay united heading into the 2020 election even as he laid out where his personal views differ from the legislation.
In a series of tweets posted just before midnight Saturday, Trump said gains by antiabortion activists will “rapidly disappear” if, as he put it, “we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one.”
Trump did not state whether he is for or against Alabama’s law, underscoring the fine line a president seeking reelection is trying to walk between a conservative base that favors criminalizing access to abortion and potentially angering women who already are skeptical of him. The Alabama law forbids the procedure in almost all circumstances, including cases of rape and incest.
Trump laid out personal views that differ, saying he supports the right to an abortion when rape or incest is involved, or when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk.
White House officials did not respond Sunday to emailed requests seeking additional comment on the president’s position.
Disagreement among Republicans is becoming apparent over Alabama’s law, and Trump sees Democrats taking advantage of that.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican in the Democratic-controlled chamber, opposed the law, saying he supports exceptions for rape and incest and serious risk to the woman’s life. Evangelist Pat Robertson, meanwhile, said the law is too “extreme” and not the best vehicle to attempt to force the Supreme Court to revisit — and possibly overturn — Roe v. Wade, the high court’s 1973 ruling that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Several of the Democrats who are competing for the right to challenge Trump in 2020 have come out against Alabama’s law and other state moves to impose new abortion restrictions, vowing to protect abortion rights through national legislation or, if elected, their Supreme Court nominees.
Other state laws ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which experts say typically happens around the sixth week of pregnancy, but is often before most women realize or confirm they are expecting a baby.
Trump tweeted that “We have come very far” on the anti-abortion front in the twoplus years since he took office, noting the addition of more than 100 conservative federal judges and two Supreme Court justices “and a whole new & positive attitude about the Right to Life.”
His selections of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court tilted the political makeup of the nation’s high court to the right, and emboldened conservatives who believe the time is ripe for a court case to challenge Roe v. Wade.