Wow. An adjudicated rapist, who was recently held liable by a jury for physically invading a woman’s bodily autonomy, has now taken it upon himself to opine about how government can control women’s bodily autonomy.
But before we even begin to analyze Donald Trump’s Monday announcement of his stance on abortion, we do need to stipulate that it’s as worthless as soiled tissue, that this guy’s only fixed principle is saving his own ass, and that whatever he’s saying now about abortion (let each state decide!) may well be junked if or when it strikes his fancy to mouth something else.
All stipulations aside, it is truly delicious to see him taking heat from all sides on the issue that has dogged him politically ever since his hand-crafted high court erased Roe v. Wade. The forced-birth zealots on the extreme right are furious that his newly-announced stance doesn’t go far enough to control women’s personal lives; and mainstream American leaders, starting with President Biden, are eviscerating him for going too far.
In his video posted yesterday, Trump congratulated himself for being “the person responsible” for ending Roe (true), claimed that “all legal scholars, both sides” wanted to end Roe (a blatant lie), claimed that the Democrats support “execution after birth” (a blatant lie), and then he proceeded to punt the whole thing: “The states will determine (what to do). And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks (when abortion is permitted), or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.”
What a wimp. He thinks he can just wash his hands of the mess he made and waddle away.
His cowardice won’t wash with the American mainstream, which solidly supports choice. According to a February poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, 67 percent of independents – and even 43 percent of Republicans – favor federally-guaranteed abortion rights. Trump is basically saying that if a state wants to oppress women, he’s fine with that. Post-Roe, 14 states already ban virtually all abortions, and 7 more impose severe restrictions – in other words, he’s fine with the reality that women in nearly half the states are deprived of personal freedom simply by dint of their geographical status.
He also said yesterday, in a social media post, that as a candidate he can’t support a national ban on abortion because it would damage his chances of getting elected. (He’s right about that; since 2022, voters have stomped the GOP at the ballot box whenever abortion has been a big issue.) But on social media and on his video, he never ruled out signing such a national ban if a new Republican Congress were to pass it and send it to his desk in a second Trump reign. Because this grifter will say or do anything as befits the moment – like in 1999 when he announced a presidential exploratory committee (yes he did!) and told NBC News, “I just believe in choice,” and, on the other hand, in 2016 when he said that women who exercise choice and have abortions should face “some form of punishment.”
Meanwhile, his new wobble has incurred the wrath of right-wing extremists. They’re steamed that he’s refusing to explicitly endorse a national ban; they’re pissed that he’s apparently fine with blue states protecting the right to choose. Pass the popcorn, please.
The president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said yesterday that her followers are “deeply disappointed” with Trump: “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry.” Mike Pence, having escaped the noose, tweeted: “President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.” One anti-abortion activist tweeted: “Did (Trump) really just say we have to let a few babies die so we can win an election?” Another: “There is no such thing as ‘abortion rights.’ Rights are God given and God does not give anyone the right, under any circumstance, to kill children.”
And a prominent podcaster named Lila Rose penned this warning: “President Trump is not a pro-life candidate…In 2016, President Trump won on the back of vigorous pro-life support, and that support was vindicated with the appointment of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. But that support will not materialize in 2024 if President Trump holds to (his) anti-human and cowardly position.”
To which I say: Great! Don’t vote for him. Stay home in November. Tell your fellow zealots to do the same.
Yesterday, when Trump punted to the states, he decreed: “We have taken the Abortion Issue largely out of play.” The truth is precisely the reverse; look at what happened today in Arizona, where the state Supreme Court decreed an almost total ban on abortions. Arizona is a swing state, and now, thanks to Trump’s erasure of Roe, more women will be galvanized to vote blue in November.
Way to go, political genius. By rigging the high court to erase a 50-year precedent that encoded the freedom of women to control their bodies, Trump sowed the wind. Now he’s reaping the whirlwind.