Donald Trump's weak statement on abortion

Let's be brutally honest: Supporting IVF is about maintaining the votes and campaign contributions of rich white women.

Donald Trump's weak statement on abortion last week proved once again that "at least he fights" was always a fraud. With Roe v. Wade finally on the ash heap of history, the pro-life movement has an opportunity we would have thought unthinkable just three years ago: To push forward with limits and bans on abortion not only in the states, but at the federal level as well. Spooked by a few pro-life setbacks, Trump has decided to surrender the issue.

Trump's support of in vitro fertilization, calling it "beautiful," ought to show pro-life voters that, while Trump made an alliance with pro-life voters in 2016 and did deliver pro-life judges and policy, he does not understand the pro-life position and why pro-lifers also oppose IVF. This is not even an issue of a woman's body, as embryos frozen for IVF are stored in a laboratory and discarded (murdered) when they are no longer wanted. So let's be brutally honest: Supporting IVF is about maintaining the votes and campaign contributions of rich white women. "At least he fights?" Hardly. Trump has totally surrendered on IVF.

Trump's attempt to kick the abortion issue to the states shows more weakness. Leaving it to the states is not good enough. If you truly believe abortion is the termination of an innocent human life, as Trump claims to believe, allowing states to permit abortion is no different than allowing states to permit violence against any other population, whether a religious, ethnic or racial minority. The states should not be permitted to decide who gets basic human rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment codifies that in law. A national ban on abortion in the only logical solution.

Trump cited Ronald Reagan in his support for exceptions, but Reagan (while he was a great President) was never the leader of the anti-abortion movement. Every national and state pro-life organization I know of opposes exceptions for rape and incest. If you truly believe abortion is the unjust termination of an innocent human life, there is no logical reason to have an exception for rape. In an ideal world, the rapist should be executed, but the innocent baby should live. With that said, the hard cases are a distraction. They make up less than 5% of all abortions. If we allowed every abortion in the hard cases, the vast majority of abortions could still be prohibited.

In attempting to take the issue away from Democrats, Trump tried to please everyone and wound up pleasing no one other than his devoted fans who will praise and support everything he does no matter which position he takes. Democrats will still attack him for supporting states passing bans, including the ban in Florida that Trump said was "terrible" in 2023. Democrats will still campaign on cementing abortion "rights" at the national level.

There was no need for Trump to preemptively surrender, especially given how much pro-life voters have supported him over the last eight years. Once again, this demonstrates that Trump is a purely transactional politician with no real principles. If it benefits him, he will advance pro-life and conservative policy. If it does not (such as with his ban on bump stocks and opposition to reforming entitlement spending) he will shift his stand. The argument that "we have to win elections" is just a smokescreen. Trump is loyal to exactly one person and one principle: Donald Trump and whatever benefits him.