Brunswick Beacon, 04.18.24
Donald Trump’s abortion position has “evolved.” Mulling a presidential run in 1999 Trump said, “I’m very pro-choice. I just believe in choice.” At the 8/6/15 Republican debate, Trump declared himself pro-life, explaining, “I’ve very much evolved.” On 3/30/16, Trump proclaimed, “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions.
In 2022, Trump’s Supreme Court picks scrapped fifty years of precedent and stripped American women of the right to control their bodies. Women were outraged, with 74% saying abortion should be legal in “all or most cases.”
Now, Trump is trying to have it both ways. He takes credit for ending a woman’s constitutional right to choose. "I did it and I'm proud," Trump boasts. But Trump wants to win in November, the better to stay out of jail, and sees Republicans losing elections where reproductive rights are on the ballot. That’s why, after “strongly supporting” a national abortion ban, Trump is trying to wash his hands of what he did.
On April 8, Trump proposed a national free-for-all, where each state will decide if a woman’s body is her own. Within hours, Arizona’s Supreme Court resurrected a zombie 1864 law, written before statehood, when women couldn’t vote, banning nearly all abortions without exception for rape or incest. Such laws deny abortions to 10-year-old rape victims, force women to carry unviable pregnancies to term, and leave others sterile. Trump admitted Arizona went “too far,” when it simply exposed the consequences of Trump’s fifty shades of gray proposal.
Trump stripped women of a constitutional right, making reproductive freedom a states-rights issue, like slavery before the Civil War. Idaho has already criminalized out-of-state travel for abortions, much like 1850’s Fugitive Slave Law required free states to return escaped slaves to owners.
Because of Trump, granddaughters today have less freedom than their grandmothers did. President Biden will restore a woman’s right to choose, and end Trump’s war on women.
Arthur Hill
Southport