Anti-abortion leaders were undeterred when Trump first announced he would veto a federal abortion ban

CHICAGO – Anti-abortion leaders said Wednesday they are not discouraged after Donald Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he had said so explicitly after previously refusing to answer questions on the topic.

During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Republican presidential candidate posted on his social media platform Truth Social that “everyone knows that I would not support a federal abortion ban under any circumstances, and in fact would veto it.”

He then said abortion rights should be left to the states, his most frequent response to questions on the issue since Roe v. Wade was overturned by a conservative majority, including three Trump-nominated Supreme Court members. In the two years since the ruling, abortion rights have emerged as a major weakness for the GOP, which has struggled to find a coherent message on the path forward while boosting turnout among Democrats.

With less than five weeks until the election, Trump is trying to bridge the divide between his base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights. The former president is trying to come to terms with women – a group that is more favorable to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris across the country – in several battleground states that are likely to determine the winner.

“Trump’s announcement last night is just another example of Republicans desperately trying to rebrand themselves on the issue of abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at the national abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “But ultimately the only thing that has actually changed is their rhetoric on this matter. “It is their response to the political consequences of this deeply unpopular political position.”

Major anti-abortion groups, expressing opposition to Trump, said they were undeterred by his recent comments on a national abortion ban.

Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion organization Students for Life of America, said: “There are different approaches within the pro-life movement on how best to achieve our goal.”

“Donald Trump has his own strategy to get the federal government out of the abortion business,” she said. “We may disagree with him on the long-term goals of our movement, but in the short term we can work towards it.”

Hawkins added that there are other ways Trump could use to restrict abortion across the country, including by defunding Planned Parenthood and appointing anti-abortion officials to leadership positions in major federal departments.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said she was not surprised by Trump’s remarks.

“But honestly, unless something truly extraordinary happens in this election, neither party will have the votes in Congress to pass a national bill,” she said. “So it wasn’t at the top of our list anyway.”

Meanwhile, Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Votes, said she did not believe Trump’s vow to veto a national abortion ban, calling him “a legendary slapper who speaks his mind is what helps him the most at this point.” ” She said that even without a nationwide abortion ban, Trump would be able to restrict abortion nationwide by appointing anti-abortion judges and federal officials or restoring the Comstock Act, a 19th-century “anti-vice” law that abortion rights advocates say could threaten access to abortion. medical abortion.

Trump has not previously said whether he would veto a national ban. In fact, he repeatedly refused to say whether he would veto such a ban during September’s presidential debate with Harris, even though it is extremely unlikely that either political party would be able to gain enough votes in Congress to pass national abortion legislation.

In August, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, said the former president would veto a nationwide ban. However, Trump disagreed on the topic during the September debate, saying, “I haven’t discussed it with JD.”

Since then, the question has remained unresolved amid Trump’s changing position on this key issue.

Trump senior adviser Jason Miller on Tuesday rejected the idea that Trump has changed his position on the issue.

“President Trump has made clear what he has always said, that it should go back to the states,” he told reporters after the debate. “Nothing has changed. He always said it should go back to the states.”

During Tuesday’s debate, Vance falsely claimed that he himself had never supported a national ban, although in 2022 he stated that he “certainly would like to see abortion illegal in the country” and supported Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal for a national ban on 15-week abortions pregnancy. pregnancy In 2023, he expressed support for a “minimum national standard” for abortion, including at 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Republicans were accused of trying to turn federal abortion restrictions into “minimum national standards” in order to distort their own position on the issue in the face of the political unpopularity of the GOP’s position on abortion.

“It doesn’t matter what they call it,” Vasquez-Giroux said. “What matters is how it will affect everyone we know, love and care about. If you call it a restriction or a ban, it’s the same thing and ordinary people will suffer.”

According to a July poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about 6 in 10 Americans believe their state should generally allow legal abortion if for any reason they do not want to get pregnant. Voters in seven states, including conservative Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, either protected abortion rights or rejected attempts to restrict them on statewide ballots over the past two years.

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign maintained that Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban if re-elected and blamed him for abortion restrictions in some parts of the country since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which once recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

Trump has repeatedly taken credit for appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and has bragged about turning abortion issues over to the states. However, in about half of the states, voters do not have direct influence through citizen initiatives, and in states where abortion will be on the ballot this year, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies are using a wide range of strategies to oppose proposed ballot initiatives.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.