Trump’s moderated abortion stance draws mixed reviews from pro-lifers

By David Roach - Posted at Baptist Press:

Published December 19, 2024

WASHINGTON (BP) – Donald Trump’s pledge to ensure medication abortion access has not quelled optimism among some pro-lifers about prospects for his second term as president. Others aren’t so sure.

“For his second term, he is trying to take a more neutral stance on the abortion issue,” said Carolyn McDonnell, litigation counsel with the pro-life organization Americans United for Life (AUL). But “we can be optimistic about his upcoming term. I think we are going to see a lot of pro-family policy that indirectly impacts the abortion issue.”

That could include initiatives to reduce the cost of giving birth, adoption and foster care tax credits and extended postpartum insurance coverage, McDonnell said. Trump’s fiscal conservatism could lead to “a little bit of a crackdown” against funding abortion with federal money, and he is likely to continue supporting “conscience protections” for recipients of federal funds who refuse to perform abortions.

Still, recent comments by Trump unsettled other pro-lifers.

During an interview with Time magazine to accompany his Person of the Year designation, the president-elect initially said he would “take a look at” whether to limit access to medication abortion. But when pressed, he said he was “strongly against” limiting access. Then when asked, “Are you committed to making sure that the FDA does not strip [women’s] ability to access abortion pills?” Trump replied, “That would be my commitment.”

Earlier this year, Trump also dropped the idea of a national 16-week abortion ban, according to Time’s reporting. His campaign aides allegedly presented him a slide deck titled “How a national abortion ban will cost Trump the election.”

The moderated stances on abortion seemed to be an about-face for the man who suggested in the 2016 presidential campaign that women who have abortions should be punished, and whose Supreme Court appointments helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

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