Donald Trump’s “abortion problem” is back in the spotlight after he refused to say outright during his debate with Kamala Harris whether he would veto an abortion ban, and experts have told Newsweek he is in a no-win position on the issue.
Abortion has turned out to be a major issue in this election, with the Democrats pushing themselves as the party of reproductive freedom and warning that Trump plans to bring in a national ban on abortion, something he has denied multiple times.
But the former President was not willing to say whether he would veto a national ban if it landed on his desk, when asked about it during the presidential candidates’ first debate in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night.
When moderator Linsey Davis asked him this directly, he said: “Well I won’t have to because it won’t happen.”
When she pressed Trump, citing the fact that his running mate JD Vance has previously said the former President would veto it, Trump answered: “Well I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness.”
Before this, Trump, who has previously described himself as “most pro-life president in American history,” said Harris was lying when she repeated claims he would ban abortion nationally if he won the White House. “I’m not signing a ban, it’s a lie,” he said.
“I’m not in favor of an abortion ban, but it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states,” he added.
Trump has faced heat from parts of the pro-life movement for not taking a harder line on the issue, most recently after he said Florida’s six-week ban, which Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law last year, is too restrictive.
Last month the founder of the anti-abortion organization Live Action, Lila Rose, said that it “is wrong for Trump supporters to demand that pro-life activists be endlessly loyal to Trump in response to repeated betrayal.” She said Trump is “losing pro-life votes.”
There is a crucial conversation happening right now about protecting children and political strategy.
We are pro-life activists. What should our response be when Trump repeatedly takes step-after-step back from what it means to protect innocent preborn lives, to the point of…
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) August 29, 2024
Stephen Farnsworth, a Political Scientist from the University of Mary Washington, told Newsweek Trump is “in a no-win situation on abortion.”
“That is why he doesn’t have a good response to the obvious question on his views regarding one of America’s most enduring policy debates,” Farnsworth said, “If he vows to sign a national abortion ban he angers those swing voters, and if he says he won’t, he angers the pro-life voters who might already have their doubts about Trump’s commitment, given his back-and-forth statements on the question.”
He added: “Refusing to answer the direct question is the least bad scenario for Trump—answering it with a yes or a no would have been worse options. Of course, it keeps the issue alive for another day, which isn’t all that helpful.”
When Newsweek contacted Trump’s team for a response, spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “[Trump has] actually made clear his position many times.”
When Vance was asked about the discrepancy between his and Trump’s answers to the veto question on Wednesday, he told ABC News: “I think the President has been very clear that he doesn’t want a national abortion ban. And I think in some ways, he finds the question a little bit ridiculous because why are we asking him about legislation that’s never actually going to happen?”
Just a few hours before the debate, on Tuesday afternoon, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will be presented to voters in November.
Anti-abortion protesters pray at the U.S. Supreme Court, and Donald Trump speaks during the presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris (inset). Trump avoided a definitive answer on the question of a national abortion ban.
AP
Southeast Missouri State University’s Political Science Professor Jeremy Walling told Newsweek that the Missouri landscape illustrates how “Trump is in a tough spot with the abortion issue.”
“Missouri citizens have overwhelmingly supported Trump in the past,” Walling said, but he believes it is around 50/50 on whether folks in the state believe abortion should be illegal while many Missouri citizens still report being Christian.
“Against that backdrop, it makes sense that Trump would have a hard time fine-tuning a position,” Walling added.
A recent poll from St. Louis University and YouGov found that 52 percent of 900 likely Missouri voters would vote for constitutional protections for abortion rights while 34 percent said they would not and 14 percent said they were not sure. These voters were questioned between August 8 and August 16. The survey disclaims a margin of error of 3.79 percentage points.
Walling went on to argue that Trump’s “let the states decide” position is his way of being “simultaneously pro-abortion to that constituency and anti-abortion to that constituency.”
Walling said: “With white evangelicals comprising a sizable chunk of Trump’s base, he and his team have the unenviable task of determining how to position themselves on abortion. I would say that abortion is a major reason that white evangelicals are willing to support him.
“Wild claims that Democrats support abortion after birth are scare tactics designed to shore up support. Meanwhile, saying that he wouldn’t support a national ban is a way of having it both ways.”
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Professor of Political Science Daniel Ponder, at Missouri’s Drury University, had similar thoughts when he told Newsweek “white Evangelical Christians are a big part of Trump’s base, and for them, abortion is a principal issue—he needs them to turn out in large numbers. “
“While unlikely to turn to Harris necessarily,” Ponder continued, Trump “could depress enthusiasm and turnout if they believe that he now retreats, albeit only somewhat, from an issue that has animated a major part of his base,” he said.
Ponder added: “While the economy and the border are also part of the campaign equation, it is clear that abortion is too.”
Some 34 percent of eligible voters in the U.S. say that abortion is an issue that is most likely to determine how they would vote in the election, according to exclusive polling carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek.
Out of these 862 people, 19 percent said they would vote for Trump and 53 percent said they would vote for Harris.
This survey was carried out on August 29, with a sample size of 2,500, with a 1.96 percentage point margin of error.
“Abortion and reproductive rights more broadly are incredibly important issues in this election,” Professor Sophia Jordán Wallace, from the University of Washington’s Department of Political Science said.
She told Newsweek: “Trump is trying to thread a needle on abortion politics and reproductive rights, but that isn’t really possible given the makeup of his base of supporters. At the same time he cannot win without appealing to some voters beyond his base and he is trying to figure out how to do that.”
