On August 29, Donald Trump was on NBC News giving an interview and the issue of abortion came up. He was asked about the Florida ballot initiative that would overturn the controversial and unpopular six-week abortion ban imposed by Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican legislature last year in the state. If passed, the ballot measure would override the existing ban and make abortion rights a part of Florida’s state constitution. Trump said he would support the ballot initiative. “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he said, indicating that he has changed his position on abortion yet again and was open to allowing it until the time of foetal viability.
Interestingly, speaking two days later at a campaign stop in Potterville, Michigan, a key battleground state, Trump also pledged to make in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment free for all women, in an apparent bid to appeal to a wide swathe of women voters by presenting himself as a defender of reproductive rights. As President, he said he would require the government or insurance companies to cover all costs for IVF. “We want more babies, to put it very nicely,” said Trump.
The pushback was almost instantaneous. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an NGO that seeks to ban abortion, said Trump’s new statements had completely undermined his position in the elections. Albert Mohler, who heads the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote on X, “Trump now appears determined to undermine his pro-life supporters. His criticism of Florida abortion restrictions & his call for government funding of IVF & his recent statement about 'reproductive rights' seem almost calculated to alienate pro-life voters.” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life in America, too, weighed in, saying Trump did not want to be pro-life any more. “Pro-lifers are being screwed.”
Trump quickly backed down. Alarmed by the stinging criticism from his core base, he made a U-turn, saying he supported the six-week abortion ban in Florida and that he would vote no on the ballot measure, calling it “radical”. He also falsely claimed that the measure would allow abortion “in the ninth month”.
Coming from Trump, the flip-flops are not surprising. He has been doing it for a long time. In a 1999 NBC interview, Trump said he was “very pro-choice”. Twelve years later, addressing a conservative conference, he said he had become “pro-life”. During the 2016 presidential primaries, his rival Republican candidates raised the contradictions and Trump said his position on abortion “had evolved”. After winning the nomination in 2016, he told the MSNBC host Chris Matthews that he had turned into a staunch opponent of abortion rights, even hinting at penalties for women who underwent the procedure.
As president, Trump installed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 judgment that offered legal protection for abortions. And he has always taken credit for it. But as abortion became a key issue in this presidential election cycle, Trump said in March that he would support a 15-week national abortion ban. He contradicted himself almost immediately, saying that only states should have the power to regulate the procedure.
Meanwhile, his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance said Trump would veto any federal restriction imposed on abortion.
Clearly, Trump’s flip-flops have made it very difficult for voters and analysts to ascertain where he stands. It has also made him hugely unpopular among women, especially with the Democrats replacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris, known for her pro-choice credentials, as their presidential candidate. No wonder a recent CBS News poll shows that among women voters, Harris leads Trump 56 per cent to 44 per cent. Her margin goes further up among women who want abortion to be legal. And the issue is not just limited to women. More than 50 per cent of all voters say abortion would be a key element in determining their choice in November.
Democrats eye Trump’s muddled abortion message with glee. The Harris campaign has made it clear that she supports abortion until foetal viability (between 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy). Following the Trump flip-flop on the Florida ballot initiative, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “Reproductive Freedom” bus tour, which was planned in advance, on September 3. Incidentally, the tour kicked off from Florida, which Harris strategists said was a happy coincidence for them.
Although Trump is unlikely to lose his adopted home state in November, it has given the Democrats an opportunity to highlight the Republican position on the issue and Trump’s continuing U-turns and clear discomfiture in dealing with the emotional topic. “Trump has had more positions on reproductive rights than he has had wives,” said television personality Ana Navarro, a Republican who supports abortion rights, while stumping for Harris.
The Democratic National Convention held last month in Chicago had featured emotional stories of women who were unable to access reproductive health care while facing pregnancy-related complications because of the restrictions imposed by state laws. The Harris team was also quick to challenge Trump’s new-found enthusiasm for IVF coverage by pointing out that the Republican manifesto adopted during the party convention in Milwaukee called upon states to adopt the ‘personhood legislation’, which would give 14th Amendment protection to foetal personhood. It would make IVF procedures and hormonal birth control difficult or even illegal.
While Trump’s shifting views on abortion is unlikely to help him win over moderate and independent voters, it could alienate the conservative constituency. At the moment, most pro-life leaders in the Trump camp are staying with him as they believe that the alternative would be disastrous for their agenda. Many of them hope that Trump’s flip-flops are just election stunts and nothing more. They believe that once elected, he will be the most pro-life president in history. However, a large number of conservative and religious voters could find it hard to stomach such messaging inconsistency and opt to sit this election out. In swing states, it could make a big difference, spoiling Trump’s chances. More alarming for Trump is the fact that apart from Florida, ten other states, including the key swing states of Arizona and Nevada, have ballot initiatives on abortion along with the presidential elections.
Up to a quarter of the voters in these swing states say that abortion will be the issue that would most determine their votes in November, tying roughly with immigration as the most highly rated election issue, say surveys by the New York Times and Redfield and Wilton Strategies. Another survey from Quinnipiac University found 55 per cent of voters think Harris was better equipped to tackle the issue, compared with 38 per cent for Trump. It is nearly double the edge that Biden had over Trump when he was the Democratic nominee. Harris has been successful in augmenting her support among a large corss-section of voters—young, black and Hispanic—on the issue, helping her increase the gap with Trump.
After the nullification of Roe v Wade, 14 states have enacted total abortion bans and eight other states have imposed measures more restrictive than the parameters allowed by Roe v Wade. With his ‘multiple choice policy format’ on the issue, Trump could alienate both moderate voters and his core base, hurting his prospects significantly in November.