Former President Donald Trump thinks he made the right political decision when he announced Monday that he will not back a nationwide ban on late-term abortions. He thinks this stance will make it easier for political independents to support him and that few conservatives will fail to vote for him because of it.
But Trump did not make the right decision. This choice will instead come back to haunt him.
It is true that, following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion position has played poorly at the ballot box, particularly when voters have been asked to address the issue head-on. While some conservative governors who imposed strong restrictions on abortion, such as Georgia’s Brian Kemp, have been reelected, other Republican politicians, such as candidates for the Virginia statehouse, have lost elections because of their positions on abortion.
However, Trump’s response to this political dilemma for the Republican Party will not be a winner. This is because his stance amounts to retreat on an issue that has animated national American politics for the past five decades and galvanized conservative support at pivotal moments. In fact, abortion was the key reason Trump won the presidency in 2016. According to the Washington Post, 26 percent of Trump voters in 2016 said that his ability to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices — who would be opposed to Roe v. Wade — was the reason for their decision. Additionally, the issue of abortion motivated Republicans more than Democrats in 2016: According to a CNN exit poll, of those who said Supreme Court nominations were “the most important factor,” 56 percent voted for Trump while only 41 percent voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Of course, there is a difference between voting for a candidate who pledges to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and voting for one who pledges to ban late-term abortions nationwide. The motivation underlying both of those decisions, however, is opposition to the proliferation of abortion. And now that Roe is dead, the way for the Republican Party to take advantage of its side of the issue — the pro-life side — on the national level is to seek nationwide restrictions. If Republicans bow out on this most salient issue, they will hand all momentum on it to Democrats, who are pressing for full legalization. Now is the time to stand firm and keep rank so that this most contentious issue can be used as a wedge to drive conservative support in the long-term. It is not the time to back out on one of the foremost issues in America — if not the foremost — thus ceding all ground on it at the national level to Democrats.
True, Trump can put forward plans to reduce access to abortion through alternative measures and claim that he would be better than Biden on the issue. But in taking the position that the states should decide, he has effectively removed himself from the debate and relinquished the leverage that the abortion issue would have provided him. Since he is not even willing to stop the abortions that are as vividly barbaric as those that kill children right before birth, he has removed himself from the debate.
Trump’s political style has long been characterized by his strategy of taking strong stances on issues ahead of others and, in doing so, compelling voters to his side. This has been true on his protectionist trade policy, America First approach to foreign policy, staunch opposition to China, and advocacy for immigration security. Retreating and leaving Democrats to stand alone on a critical issue is contrary to his political tactics. It will make him into a weak politician when he wants to be perceived as a strong one.
Trump’s decision to abandon the issue of abortion seems to be founded on bitterness and fear. As for the first, the Washington Post has reported that Trump feels pro-lifers have been ungrateful for the political victory he handed them through the appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. When conservative activists were pushing for him to adopt a national ban on abortion, Trump asked them “why they were not more thankful for what he had already done,” the Post reported. As for the latter motivation, fear, Trump seems to have succumbed to the mainstream media’s endless propagandizing of the idea that support for restrictions on abortion cannot possibly be a politically smart move to make. (READ ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE: Trump Made the Right Call)
Trump has abandoned the issue of abortion now that he believes its political expediency has passed. “You must follow your heart on this issue, but remember you must also win elections to restore our culture,” he said in his video on Truth Social announcing his position. This is simply wrong. If Trump wants to rally conservative support and passion — and turn the 2024 election into the moral mandate that was the 2016 election — he should demand nationwide restrictions on abortion. Driving a movement for the abolition of abortion, the evil that murders millions of Americans, would be much more powerful than tepid retreat.