Former President Donald Trump defended his stance that abortion rights should be decided by the states in the face of criticism from conservatives such as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Mr. Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence.
Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, “is doing a great disservice to the Republican Party, and to our Country,” Mr. Trump said in one of many Truth Social posts defending his long-awaited opinion Monday.
“Terminating Roe v. Wade was, according to all Legal Scholars, a Great Event, but sometimes with Great Events come difficulties. Many Good Republicans lost Elections because of this Issue, and people like Lindsey Graham, that are unrelenting, are handing Democrats their dream of the House, Senate, and perhaps even the Presidency,” he wrote.
He wrote that Democrats “love this issue” and would never approve of any abortion restrictions “as long as Republicans will allow them to do so.”
The former president claimed his Supreme Court appointment helped get the constitutional right to an abortion overturned in 2022, and said that Mr. Graham and Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, were “hard-liners” who didn’t actually do much for the pro-life movement.
“Lindsey, Marjorie, and others fought for years, unsuccessfully, until I came along and got the job done,” he wrote.
“We cannot let our Country suffer any further damage by losing elections on an issue that should always have been decided by the States, and now will be!” he said in a second post.
Mr. Trump announced Monday that he thinks abortion limits should be left to the states, but that he favors exceptions for cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
He said allowing states to make this decision would represent the “will of the people.”
Under pressure to reveal his position on an issue that has proven problematic for Republicans in recent elections, Mr. Trump said last month that he hadn’t made up his mind about what the abortion limit should be, but was considering somewhere around 15 or 16 weeks.
But his statement Monday left that opinion behind.
In his statement he also stressed the importance of allowing in vitro fertilization for couples who struggle to conceive, a stance he quickly took after an Alabama court in February ruled state law mandated that frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization are considered children, paving the way for wrongful death lawsuits.
Democrats, who have been using abortion issues as a focal point of their 2024 campaigns, slammed the former president for his new stance.
President Biden’s campaign team told reporters in a press call that “it is a certainty” that Mr. Trump, if elected, would sign a GOP bill to ban abortion nationally, as well as other measures that would threaten access to contraception and the utilization of IVF.
But, Mr. Trump’s abortion position also has angered conservatives like Mr. Graham, who said the focus should be on the well-being of the unborn fetus rather than on where they would be born.
“The science is clear – a child at fifteen weeks is well-developed and is capable of feeling pain,” he said. “I will continue to advocate that there should be a national minimum standard limiting abortion at fifteen weeks because the child is capable of feeling pain, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
Mr. Pence said Mr. Trump’s statement was “a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.”
Ms. Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony group said they “are deeply disappointed” in the former president’s position.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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