No modern presidency has been as consequential for the antiabortion movement as Donald Trump\u2019s. And perhaps no present-day politician appears as uncertain about what to do about the issue now as Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Confirmation that voters in Trump\u2019s home state of Florida will soon vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights into law \u2014 and whether to effectively veto Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019s and the state GOP\u2019s six-week abortion ban \u2014 arrived this week. Similar questions could be on the ballot in many other states as Trump seeks a second stint in the White House.<\/p>\n
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has responded to this development with all the political certainty of a college freshman running for class president. And his hemming and hawing \u2014 even after effectively locking up the Republican nomination \u2014 speaks volumes about how much this sudden liability of an issue looms over the GOP\u2019s 2024 hopes.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign initially put out a statement Monday saying merely, \u201cPresident Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states\u2019 rights, because he supports the voters\u2019 right to make decisions for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great to support the democratic process \u2014 something that isn\u2019t always a given with Trump \u2014 but that statement basically says nothing about his own view on the issue at hand. And when asked for more specificity Tuesday about Florida\u2019s six-week ban, Trump played a familiar card: I\u2019ll tell you later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be making a statement next week on abortion,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Translation: I really don\u2019t want to talk about this, and I need to figure out my position.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot like when Trump spent the better part of five years promising a health-care plan that was always just around the corner \u2014 often \u201ctwo weeks\u201d away. We\u2019ll see if this plan proves that elusive.<\/p>\n
Just as it\u2019s a lot easier to say \u201crepeal Obamacare\u201d than to put forward your own plan to be picked apart, it\u2019s a lot easier to say \u201coverturn Roe v. Wade\u201d than it is to delineate what restrictions should be in place after that.<\/p>\n
And his stalling was merely the latest evidence of Trump\u2019s remarkable uncertainty when it comes to the new abortion rights paradigm:<\/p>\n
In April 2023, Trump declined to weigh in on Florida\u2019s six-week ban. His campaign instead said he supported exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, and added it was \u201can issue that should be decided at the State level.\u201d<\/span>The next week, he offered a thoroughly equivocal promise: \u201cWe\u2019ll get something done where everyone is going to be very satisfied. I think we\u2019ll get it done on some level, it could be on different levels, but we\u2019re going to get it done. \u2026 We will get that taken care of.\u201d<\/span>A leading antiabortion group soon called Trump\u2019s comment that this was a state issue \u201cmorally indefensible\u201d and said he must support a federal 15-week ban. It soon met with him and warmed to his candidacy, despite no indication he had taken its litmus-test position. Neither Trump nor the group elaborated.<\/span>In September, Trump called six-week bans \u201cterrible\u201d \u2014 a shot at his then-primary opponent DeSantis (R). But pressed on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d Trump repeatedly punted on both the time frame and state vs. federal restrictions. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen is you\u2019re going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You\u2019re going to come up with a number that\u2019s going to make people happy,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cIt could be state or it could be federal. I don\u2019t frankly care.\u201d<\/span>In January, a woman at a Fox News town hall urged Trump not to \u201ccompromise\u201d on abortion. Trump provided no clarity on his position, but he did say four times that the GOP needs to \u201cwin elections\u201d \u2014 the implication being that it shouldn\u2019t alienate voters by being too extreme.<\/span>As of February, Trump was telling advisers that he liked a 16-week federal abortion ban, according to the New York Times. One said Trump liked that number not because of anything specific to the gestation process but because, \u201cIt\u2019s even. It\u2019s four months.\u201d<\/span>In late February, Trump floated 15 weeks but suggested it should be a state issue. \u201cMore and more I\u2019m hearing about 15 weeks, and I haven\u2019t decided yet,\u201d he told Sean Hannity on Fox News. \u201cAlso, we got it back to the states where it belongs.\u201d<\/span>Trump last month again floated 15 weeks, but suggested it might be a federal ban, saying \u201cmaybe we could bring the country together on that issue. \u2026 Fifteen weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. But I\u2019ll make that announcement at the appropriate time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In sum, it\u2019s been nearly two years since the Supreme Court opened up this issue by overturning Roe. Trump has been asked for a year what his specific position is and hasn\u2019t enunciated one. He keeps providing mixed signals on whether this should be a federal issue at all. And now he won\u2019t even say whether he supports a six-week state ban that less than seven months ago he called \u201cterrible.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s no secret what\u2019s really going on here. Trump fears this issue; he has repeatedly suggested that Republicans lose elections by going too extreme on it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the \u2018abortion issue,\u2019 poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters,\u201d he posted on Truth Social after Republicans\u2019 underwhelming 2022 election results.<\/p>\n Trump clearly doesn\u2019t want that to happen to him. But it\u2019s not as if he can spend the next seven months punting on this issue. And the fact that he still doesn\u2019t have a good, ready-made answer a month after wrapping up the GOP nomination suggests that perhaps there just isn\u2019t one.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n No modern presidency has been as consequential for the antiabortion movement as Donald Trump\u2019s. And perhaps no present-day politician appears as uncertain about what to do about the issue now as Donald Trump. Confirmation that voters in Trump\u2019s home state of Florida will soon vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights into law \u2014 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2714","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\/2714","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=2714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}