There's a bit of controversy brewing over Donald Trump's position on abortion. When asked about the issue of a federal abortion ban on "Meet the Press," J.D. Vance affirmed the fact that Trump wouldn't sign one. "I can absolutely commit that. Donald Trump has been as clear about that as possible," he said. "Donald Trump wants to end this culture war over this particular topic. ... So I think Donald Trump is right. We want the federal government to focus on these big economic and immigration questions."
"Let the states figure out their own abortion policy," he said.
And conservatives are up in arms about this. I have to ask why.
In 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, declaring that Roe v. Wade had been wrongly decided and that the regulation of abortion should be returned to the states. The pro-life movement celebrated a monumental victory. This was the victory they'd been fighting for tirelessly for decades, and they were ready to take this fight to the state level.
I've seen a flood of social media posts from conservatives slamming Trump, accusing him of not being truly pro-life because he doesn't support a national abortion ban, or because of a recent post on Truth Social in which he said a second Trump presidency would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”
Honestly, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but he's been clear that he feels that letting states decide how they want to regulate is what the country wants. Considering the fact it was no secret that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was always going to send the issue back to the states, the outrage over Trump's opposition on a federal abortion ban reeks of hypocrisy. The same people who were previously ecstatic about the Dobbs ruling are now saying that Trump isn't adequately pro-life.
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When you consider how long it took to end Roe v. Wade, it's clear that the pro-life movement needs to realize that the goal of ending abortion is going to take time. Let's not forget that the Mississippi law that sparked the Dobbs case banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy—a stance that mirrors mainstream American views on abortion. But the radical pro-abortion left couldn’t tolerate anything short of unrestricted abortion, and in their overreach, they lost their beloved Roe. Push too hard and too fast, and you risk losing everything.
The recipe for winning the war on abortion is literally laid out there in public polling, which has consistently found that less than a third of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances, roughly half want limits on it, and the rest oppose it entirely. Support for abortion declines by roughly 50% with each trimester.
So, the short-term goal in the war on abortion should be to pass mainstream restrictions on it. Outright bans will backfire and will only result in Democrats being put back in power to codify abortion rights nationwide. That may not be what many want to hear, but you have to win people over first.
And anyone pro-life who doesn't support Trump in November will only help the pro-abortion party win.
