Donald Trump said he is open to restrictions and regulations on birth control before backing down from his statement

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was open to supporting contraception legislation and that his campaign would release policy on the issue “soon” – comments he later said had been misinterpreted.

Comments made during an interview with a Pittsburgh television station suggested that a future Trump administration might consider imposing mandates or supporting state restrictions on such highly personal decisions as whether women can have access to birth control. During an interview with KDKA News, Trump was asked, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?”

“We are looking into it and I will be developing a policy on it soon,” Trump responded, according to a video of the interview that was briefly posted online before its scheduled broadcast and then deleted.

Another question pressed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on whether that meant he might be willing to support some restrictions on contraception.

“Things really have a lot to do with the states, and some states are going to have different policies than others,” Trump responded, before reiterating that he would release a “very comprehensive policy” on the issue.

It is the first time Trump has suggested he will have a policy on contraception since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nation’s abortion law two years ago, setting off political battles over aspects of reproductive rights including contraception and in vitro fertilization.

Later responding to media reports about his interview, Trump stated on his Truth Social social media platform that he “never and will never” support restricting birth control and other contraceptives. Still, the Biden campaign was quick to capitalize on the interview.

“Women across the country are already suffering under Donald Trump’s post-Roe nomination nightmare, and if he wins a second term, it’s clear he wants to go even further by restricting access to contraceptives and emergency contraceptives,” Biden-Harris spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. statement.

Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate have long pressed Trump on the key issue of whether he will allow women to access the abortion pill mifepristone by mail. He has yet to make clear his views on the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that was resurrected by anti-abortion groups seeking to block shipments of mifepristone and other abortion drugs.

Asked in an April 12 interview with Time magazine about his views on the Comstock Act and mailing abortion pills, the former president promised to make a statement on the matter within the next 14 days, saying: “I feel very strongly about that. I really think this is a very important issue.”

During a follow-up interview on April 27, Trump said he would announce his position “in the next week or two.” It’s been three weeks since the interviews were published on April 30 and more than five weeks since Trump told the magazine he would release a statement.

Asked by the Associated Press about the current announcement date, campaign officials repeated a statement that endorsed Trump’s strategy of deferring state-by-state decisions on abortion. They did not provide an updated timeline for a policy statement regarding medical abortion.

“President Trump has long consistently supported states’ rights to make decisions about abortion,” the statement said.

Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said Trump allies “have already outlined exactly how they plan to eliminate abortion access across the country, with or without Congress.”

“We know Trump’s pattern because we’ve seen it,” she said in a statement. “Trump overturned Roe, brags about it constantly, and is proud of the horrific reality in which women’s lives are at risk, doctors are facing prison, and access to in vitro fertilization and birth control is under attack.”

Trump often relied on the tactic of promising to announce a major policy position within “two weeks” but failed to keep his word, including: on issues such as the minimum wage, tax policy and infrastructure. Both abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion groups expressed frustration with the delay.

“I imagine we’ve been very distracted by the events in New York, but we’re waiting for the announcement,” said Kristi Hamrick, spokeswoman for the anti-abortion group Students for Life, referring to the former president’s trial for withholding money.

Hamrick said the group has been talking to Trump’s team about what can be done to restrict abortion at the federal level.

Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, pointed to the GOP’s Project 2025 playbook, a blueprint for how to transform the federal government if Republicans win the 2024 presidential election. The Comstock Act is not explicitly mentioned in the plan. but calls for withdrawing FDA approval of mifepristone and limiting “mail order abortions.”

“Trump will say whatever he wants, but what really counts is what he did – and that was to facilitate the abolition of the constitutional right to abortion and the implementation of state abortion bans,” she said.

At least 22 states require personal delivery of abortion medications, prohibiting delivery by mail, or requiring medications to be taken at a doctor’s office, although implementation of such laws in Kentucky, Montana and Ohio has been temporarily blocked due to legal disputes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.