Former first lady Melania Trump, in her upcoming memoir, offers full-throated support for abortion rights \u2014 a position that puts her at odds with many in her husband\u2019s party, including the former president.<\/p>\n
According to the Guardian newspaper, which reviewed an advance copy of the book, titled \u201cMelania,\u201d the former first lady writes that \u201cit is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump has claimed credit for the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Trump, as president, nominated three of the conservative justices who helped make the landmark ruling on abortion rights in 2022. Trump more recently has advocated leaving abortion policy to the states.<\/p>\n
In a promotional video for the memoir posted on her X account Thursday, Melania Trump said she believes individual freedom is \u201ca fundamental principle that I safeguard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat does \u2018My body, my choice,\u2019 really mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania Trump\u2019s defense of abortion rights in her upcoming book \u2014 which is set for release next week, a month before the election \u2014 marks her most in-depth public comments on the issue. As first lady, she avoided making her policy views public, and has made few public appearances as her husband campaigns for a second term.<\/p>\n
In the book, she questions Republican efforts to curtail abortion rights, saying that restricting \u201ca women\u2019s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?\u201d she asks. \u201cA woman\u2019s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She adds: \u201cI have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania Trump\u2019s comments come as her husband and the Republican Party have struggled to find a winning message on abortion post-Roe that placates both the conservative base and the broader majority of Americans who support abortion rights. A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll in August found that 62 percent of Americans oppose the overturning of that five-decade-old decision, while 35 percent support it.<\/p>\n
Abortion rights advocates suggested that Melania Trump\u2019s comments were calculated to appease voters as Republicans lose support on the issue. They also noted that, as first lady, Melania Trump did not publicly defend abortion rights, even as her husband and his administration actively sought to curtail them.<\/p>\n
Antiabortion advocates condemned the former first lady\u2019s writings, while Republican strategists said they may matter little to voters who they say are used to shifting messages on the topic from Trump but trust him to continue opposing efforts to reinstate nationwide access to abortion.<\/p>\n
Spokespeople for Trump\u2019s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Republicans nationwide had long called for national restrictions on abortion, and the party\u2019s platform during the 2016 election endorsed legislation that would enact a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Now, however, the GOP has sought to moderate its position on the issue after abysmal congressional losses in the 2022 midterms, where many antiabortion Republicans were defeated by Democrats who campaigned on the promise to defend reproductive rights. Democrats have doubled down on that strategy this year, highlighting Republicans\u2019 unpopular positions on abortion and other reproductive health care such as in vitro fertilization.<\/p>\n
The Trump campaign\u2019s conflict over how to navigate abortion messaging was spotlighted in August, when Trump suggested he would support an amendment on the Florida ballot that would reverse the state\u2019s six-week ban. A swift backlash from conservative antiabortion groups followed, and the next day he said he would vote against it.<\/p>\n
In Tuesday\u2019s vice-presidential debate, Trump\u2019s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio) \u2014 who ran for Senate in 2022 on a platform that promised to \u201cend abortion,\u201d \u2014 aimed to appeal to moderate and independent voters by saying that the Republican Party has to do a better job in \u201cearning the American people\u2019s trust back\u201d on abortion. But he did not specify the party\u2019s platform on the issue.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, antiabortion groups expressed displeasure with Melania Trump\u2019s position. In a statement to The Post, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser criticized the former first lady for referring to abortion as a \u201cfreedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen with unplanned pregnancies are crying out for more resources, not more abortions,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Dannenfelser emphasized that her organization\u2019s priority is to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party\u2019s agenda, characterizing their support for national abortion rights as pushing \u201cno-limits abortion on demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abortion rights advocates, meanwhile, were skeptical of Melania Trump\u2019s comments on abortion.<\/p>\n
Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion rights advocacy group Reproductive Freedom For All, said she found the former first lady\u2019s writings on abortion \u201cdisgusting, \u201coutrageous\u201d and \u201cshameful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she actually believes what she\u2019s saying, much like her husband, she has blood on her hands,\u201d Timmaraju said. \u201cWomen are dying \u2014 it\u2019s been documented \u2014 because of his decisions and what he did to the Supreme Court. Where was Melania Trump then?\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, accused the Trumps of trying to play voters \u201clike a fiddle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the latest example of politicians \u2014 or the politically-adjacent \u2014 shifting their position in rhetoric but not in action,\u201d Johnson said in a statement, noting that Melania Trump \u201cnever once publicly\u201d disavowed her husband\u2019s actions \u201cuntil weeks before an election where our bodies are again on the ballot and they are losing voters to this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats, meanwhile, have focused on reminding voters of Republicans\u2019 previous stances and opposition to national protections for abortion rights.<\/p>\n
In a statement Thursday, Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for Harris\u2019s campaign, said that, \u201csadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump\u2019s husband firmly disagrees with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, Chitika added, \u201cis the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauren Zelt, a Republican consultant who worked on Sen. Mitt Romney\u2019s (R-Utah) 2012 presidential campaign, told The Post on Thursday that she doesn\u2019t believe Melania Trump\u2019s new comments on her views on abortion will move the needle among Republican voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s previous stances on abortion didn\u2019t seem to stop Republican voters in 2016,\u201d Zelt said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think that this is going to change the way voters perceive the campaign on Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former first lady Melania Trump, in her upcoming memoir, offers full-throated support for abortion rights \u2014 a position that puts her at odds with many in her husband\u2019s party, including the former president. According to the Guardian newspaper, which reviewed an advance copy of the book, titled \u201cMelania,\u201d the former first lady writes that \u201cit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}