Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted he would never push for restrictions on contraception after getting panned over an interview in which he appeared to suggest the possibility.
“I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL, or other contraceptives. This is a Democrat fabricated lie,” the former president declared on Truth Social.
“I DO NOT SUPPORT A BAN ON BIRTH CONTROL, AND NEITHER WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!”
Earlier in the day, the Biden-Harris campaign highlighted a clip of Trump, 77, from an interview with a Pittsburgh TV station suggesting he was “looking at” possible restrictions on morning-after pills.
“We’re looking at that, and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting,” Trump told KDKA political analyst Jon Delano, who asked whether the former president would “support any restrictions,” on Tuesday.
“You will find it very smart. I think it’s a smart decision,” Trump further teased. “We’ll be releasing it [our policy] very soon.”
Delano had specifically mentioned morning-after pills, which are taken after sex to prevent pregnancy.
Those pills have been controversial among some religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists.
The pills are entirely different from abortion, the process used to terminate a fetus.
Last month, Trump distanced himself from traditional Republican policy on abortion by deferring to the states. Around the same time, he also ripped into Arizona’s 160-year-old abortion law, contending that it “went too far” by banning all abortions except those “necessary to save” a pregnant person’s life.
During his interview with KDKA, Trump — who is again running for the White House — suggested that the states will take point on contraception, too.
“Things really do have a lot to do with the states, and some states are gonna have different policies than others,” he told the Pittsburgh TV station.
The Biden-Harris campaign quickly bashed Trump over his remarks, asking, “How is the answer to that [contraceptive] question not immediately, ‘No?’
“Women across the country are already suffering from Donald Trump’s post-Roe nightmare, and if he wins a second term, it’s clear he wants to go even further by restricting access to birth control and emergency contraceptives,” Biden-Harris rep Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
“While Trump works overtime to roll back the clock and rip away women’s freedoms, President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting nonstop to protect access to birth control and women’s right to make their own personal health care decisions.”
Last month, Trump told TIME Magazine that he planned to unveil a policy regarding the mail-order mifepristone drug soon. Mifepristone is part of a two-drug regime to induce an abortion.
The US Supreme Court is set to rule on a case about whether access to the controversial drug should be rolled back.
“I am for helping women,” Trump told the magazine. “You probably saw that the IVF came out very well.
“And, you know, I set a policy on it, and the Republicans immediately adopted the policy,” he said of his stance to make in-vitro fertilization more widely available.