On Monday, former Vice President Mike Pence reacted to former President Donald Trump’s statement that states should decide the laws surrounding abortion. In his statement, Trump did not push for a national ban on abortion, as some other Republicans have touted.
To recap, Leah covered on Monday how Trump said he was proud that Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, but added that he believes that states should decide abortion policy.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” Trump said. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, 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 or some will have more conservative than others and that’s what they will be,” he continued. “At the end of the day this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or in many cases your religion or your faith."
He noted, however, that he is "strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
On X (formerly Twitter), Pence called Trump’s stance a “slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” and added that “too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life.”
“By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative justices, the Trump-Pence Administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and gave the pro-life movement the opportunity to compassionately support women and unborn children,” Pence explained. “Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true – human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb.”
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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. By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative justices, the Trump-Pence Administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the…
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 8, 2024
After Trump’s announcement, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said that the organization was “deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights,” she explained. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry.”
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