Donald Trump has announced that he will finally come up with a “deal” that will solve the abortion dilemma, which he would announce on Monday. The former president had so far been silent on an issue that has deeply divided America and his position will be crucial in determining the US presidential race going forward.
“Great love and compassion must be shown when even thinking about the subject of LIFE,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social, “but at the same time we must use common sense in realizing that we have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation, which is currently in serious DECLINE, TO WIN ELECTIONS, without which we will have nothing other than failure, death, and destruction.” While Trump did not provide further details, it seems likely that he will call for a federal ban less restrictive than the six-week prohibition passed in states such as Florida and Georgia.
The former president’s position will be watched closely by Republicans and Democrats. President Biden and the Democratic party had attacked Trump in February on the issues when the former president had privately indicated that he would support a 16-week ban. Biden who signed an executive order in 2022 that provides reproductive rights just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade (a 1973 US Supreme Court order which guarantees the right to abortion) had stated in February that Trump was trying to “rip away your rights,” while he was “running to protect them.”
The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right to abortion until the time of viability, at around 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Trump has stated in a radio show WABC that he was open to a 15-week ban with exceptions for cases of rape and incest. “The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15. And I’m thinking in terms of that,” he said on the show. “And it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really, even hard-liners are agreeing, seems to be, 15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”
He however stated that abortion should be a state rather than a federal issue. According to the New York Times he also urged anti-abortion activists who wanted an earlier ban to realise that “we have to win elections.”
“Everybody agrees — you’ve heard this for years — all the legal scholars on both sides agree: It’s a state issue. It shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue,” he said.
About half of U.S. adults said abortions should be permitted at the 15-week mark, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last June. Data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the vast majority of abortions from 2012 to 2021 were performed within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.
