Trump's balancing act on abortion angers conservatives

“BEYOND THIS TRUMP MOMENT”

Conservatives – like everyone else – have long struggled with how to understand Trump's stance on abortion, which has changed many times over the years.

By filling the Supreme Court with justices carefully selected for their views on abortion, the Court was able to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that enshrined the procedure as a right to abortion.

This groundbreaking move in 2022 made him a hero to many in the anti-abortion movement that had driven conservative voters to the polls for decades.

“I was able to overturn Roe v. Wade,” he wrote in a Truth Social post last year. “Without me, the pro-life movement would have just kept losing.”

But since then, the issue has become an electoral issue for the Republican Party, prompting voters in many local, state and national elections to support Democrats who have vowed to reinstate Roe.

Meanwhile, the anti-abortion movement is pushing Trump to go even further: some of them condemn fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), others call for an unpopular nationwide ban on abortion.

Trump seems to want it both ways: He has dodged the question of a ban by repeatedly insisting that “everyone” wants individual states to make their own decisions on abortion, while simultaneously accusing Harris and the Democrats of “executing” babies.

In another Truth Social post last week, he also called the Republican Party a “leader” on IVF.

He announced on Thursday (August 29) – without providing details on how it would be financed – that as president he would mandate free IVF treatments for all Americans who wanted them.

He also indicated in an interview with NBC that he would vote to repeal Florida's ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy because it was “too short.” His campaign quickly walked back that decision, saying Trump had not specified how he would vote in the November referendum in his home state.

Trump will “further alienate pro-lifers and divide his own party while doing absolutely nothing to win over anti-abortion advocates,” Klein wrote in the National Review.

While that doesn't mean conservatives will suddenly start voting for Harris, for many on the right it seems like it's time to take a different path.

“The issue is much bigger and younger than Donald Trump,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion nonprofit, told AFP.

“It will shape the (Republican Party) beyond this Trump moment.”