After former President Donald Trump gave a confused and confusing answer to a reporter who asked him about an abortion proposal in Florida, his campaign issued a clarifying statement that didn’t make things any better for his pro-life supporters.
At the moment, Trump’s position is that he is open to amending Florida’s constitution so as to make abortion a right, with almost no restrictions allowed on abortion, and almost no protections for the unborn.
Trump’s campaign stated he “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.”
But a pro-life person would not have any problem coming to a decision on the ballot initiative, which is an extreme pro-abortion measure.
Florida’s proposed Amendment 4 states “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
This proposal can be understood to have three parts:
- Abortion must be totally unrestricted until about 22 weeks of gestation, which is about when an unborn baby could survive outside of the womb.
- Abortion will basically still be fully legal even after viability up until birth because abortion providers are on the record saying every pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s health.
- Parental notification laws, but not parental consent laws, will be tolerated.
First, regarding pre-viable babies: It wouldn’t merely make abortion legal for the first 5 1/2 to 6 months of pregnancy — it would make abortion totally unrestricted. That is, Florida couldn’t create a 24-hour waiting period, it couldn’t prohibit sex-selective abortions, it couldn’t require that patients be informed of what is involved in abortion, and it couldn’t prevent men from coercing women into abortion. Abortion would be less regulated than flu shots under this measure.
Second, the late-term pregnancy clause is paper-thin. John McCormack explains as much on Twitter:
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That is, any Florida law allowed by this amendment could, at most, throw up minor hurdles before a 32-week abortion. In other words, this amendment creates an unlimited right to abortion.
If Trump is undecided on creating an unlimited right to abortion, he is not pro-life by any stretch of the word.