The Republican once hailed as the most successful pro-life president in American history made clear on Monday that he is softening his position on abortion and beefing up his support for in vitro fertilization ahead of the 2024 general election.
Former President Donald Trump has a history of criticizing heartbeat bills when they come from his political rivals, misrepresenting the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs v. Jackson decision, and wrongfully blaming Republicans’ 2022 midterm losses on their unapologetically pro-life positions. His recent declaration on “abortion rights” only further confirms that his once-celebrated pro-life track record doesn’t meet voters’ demands of a Republican president.
What Trump Gets Right
Most of Trump’s roughly four-and-a-half-minute video statement is littered with cons, but let’s start with the pros of his message. Trump opened his short speech with a passionate call for “strong, thriving, and healthy American families.”
“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life and the side of mothers, fathers, and their beautiful babies,” Trump said.
The GOP leader is right that prioritizing preborn life and families is good for children, parents, and society. To be on the side of the miracle of life, however, you have to be against ending it — something Trump’s abortion and IVF positions entail.
Trump did not address this contradiction in his video. Instead, he championed the end of Roe v. Wade as one of his biggest presidential victories and celebrated his role in nominating the justices who decided the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
“I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and, in fact, demanded be ended. Roe v. Wade — they wanted it ended.”
To his credit, Trump also seems to grasp what many other Republican candidates have failed to, which is that Democrats, not Republicans, are the extremists when it comes to abortion.
“It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month,” Trump said. “The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth — and that’s exactly what it is, the baby is born, the baby is executed after birth — is unacceptable. And almost everyone agrees with that.”
Unfortunately for pro-life Republicans, not even Trump’s “rights” on the abortion debate can fix his current wrongs.
What Trump Gets Wrong
In a clear attempt to absolve his campaign of what bad-faith actors have told Republican politicians is a Dobbs disconnect, Trump came out of the gate on Monday incredibly soft on abortion.
He began by touting IVF, a procedure that often hinges on the destruction of embryonic life, as something Republicans and pro-life conservatives should celebrate.
“We want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder. That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments by IVF in every state in America,” Trump said. “Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby. What could be more beautiful or better than that?”
Babies are beautiful and should be cherished despite the circumstances of their conception. But that doesn’t mean the multibillion-dollar fertility industry gets a free pass to serially manufacture embryos only to doom a majority of them to death or life in a freezer.
Trump’s celebration of a knee-jerk Alabama law that effectively rids fertility facilities in the state of any accountability, criminally or civilly, does exactly that. His call for the creation of children by whatever outsourced reproductive means necessary in every state also guarantees that innocent embryos, commissioned by people who could afford to fund their creation, will be subject to genetic testing, premature disposal, and other unethical practices such as surrogacy.
As pro-lifers have warned ever since the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision deeming embryos to be unborn children under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, the practices associated with assisted reproductive technology such as IVF are no better than abortion if they sustain the deliberate death of an unborn child.
This is lost on Trump, who seems to think that touting IVF would soften the blow of his abortion declaration. Trump seems to think that because he nominated some of the justices who decided Dobbs v. Jackson, his title as the most successful pro-life president is permanently protected. He’s wrong. The moment the former president used the term “abortion rights,” he conceded the fight to Democrats, who are desperate to hijack the debates about life in the womb to fit their goals.
Then in the same breath that Trump called out Democrats’ radical and unpopular abortion-until-birth agenda, he said he supported states determining “by vote or legislation or perhaps both” what happens to unborn babies.
“And whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” Trump declared.
Leaving abortion “up to the states” means Trump is giving Democrats and abortion giants a free pass to target Republican strongholds with deliberately deceptive ballot measures that promise uninhibited abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in her response statement.
It already happened in Kansas and Ohio, and now other red states with strong pro-life laws such as Florida, Nebraska, and Missouri are susceptible to takeovers by out-of-state activists seeking to permanently enshrine unlimited abortion in state constitutions.
[RELATED: State-Level Abortion Losses Are No Reason To Shy Away From Pro-Life Messaging]
Trump said that “this is all about the will of the people,” but if that were the case, why are life-protecting laws under threat and red states becoming havens for abortions — especially considering Americans’ overwhelming opposition to Democrats’ abortion-on-demand plans?
“You must follow your heart or, in many cases, your religion or your faith. Do what’s right for your family, and do what’s right for yourself. Do what’s right for your children. Do what’s right for our country, and vote — so important to vote,” Trump said, ignoring the fact that what pro-abortion Democrats wrongly deem to be “right for themselves” is diametrically opposed to what’s right for children, families, and the country.
Trump repeated this belief that Americans must “trust their hearts” several times. Yet the moment Americans sacrifice the sanctity of life, either in a cryogenic freezer or in the womb, for the selfish desires of adults, they’ve chosen wrong.
It’s true that, in Trump’s words, our nation is in “decline” and “failing.” The solution, however, isn’t to hand more power over to the Constitution-hating, anti-democracy Democrats because Trump is afraid a pro-life message will alienate voters. To fortify voters’ defenses against the infiltration of leftist radicalism, Republicans must choose their words carefully and affirm the majority of Americans’ desire to limit abortion to at least the first trimester — not just on the state level but also nationally.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
