Donald Trump was asked, three times, if he would veto a national abortion ban. Three times, he sidestepped the question.
What else can you believe, then, if he were to be elected president, and Republicans in Congress were able to get a national abortion ban to his desk, that he would do anything else but sign it?
“Let’s understand how we got here. Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade. And they did exactly as he intended,” Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in Tuesday’s prime-time debate, which for the moment might be the one and only between the two candidates, with Trump saying on Thursday that he won’t agree to a follow-up debate.
Since the Trump Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, 24 Republican-led states have enacted partial or total abortion bans, and according to an analysis from The Washington Post, 43 percent of American women between the ages of 15 and 44 live in states where their right to make decisions about their own reproductive healthcare have been taken away from them.
The bad political news for Trump there: 67 percent of women in states with abortion bans want their reproductive rights back, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
You can bet that at least a few of those women will show up at the polls over the next few weeks, and through Nov. 5.
“In over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide healthcare. In one state it provides prison for life,” Harris pointed out in the debate. “Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest. Which, understand what that means. A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
Trump’s response to this is to, basically, no other way to put it, lie, trying to deflect by claiming – lying – to the effect that “radical” Democrats support abortion in the ninth month, that Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and the sitting governor of Minnesota, “says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is OK.”
He also claimed – again, lied – that “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states, where the people could vote.”
Wrong: recent polling confirms that Americans still overwhelmingly support the protections for abortion rights that had been enshrined in Roe v. Wade, with support in a Marquette Law School poll conducted last month measuring that support at 67 percent.
“I have talked with women around our country,” Harris said, looking right at Trump as she addressed the issue. “You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the healthcare providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that. And I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States. I will proudly sign it into law.”
One of Trump’s deflections, when asked if he would sign a national abortion ban, was to deride Harris for thinking that she’d ever get a bill to restore Roe v. Wade to her desk.
“She’ll never get the vote. It’s impossible for her to get the vote. Especially now with a 50-50, essentially 50-50 in both the Senate and the House. She’s not going to get the vote. She can’t get the vote. She won’t even come close to it. So, it’s just talk,” Trump said.
What he’s telling you there: even if Trump loses, he and his Republican buddies in Congress, and his Trump-packed Supreme Court, will make sure nothing is done to undo what they’ve already done to restrict women’s healthcare rights.
His next deflection was trying to talk over Harris.
“You should ask,” Trump tried to direct the debate’s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis from ABC News, “will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?”
Harris: “Come on.”
Trump: “Would you do that? Why don’t you ask her that question?”
Harris: “Why don’t you answer the question, would you veto …”
Trump: “That’s the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade …”
Harris: “Answer the question, would you veto …”
Trump: “You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month …”
Harris: “That’s not true.”
Trump: “And probably after birth. Just look at the governor, former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia said we put the baby aside, and then we determine what we want to do with the baby.”
If you need that fact-checked, shame on you, but, no, live-birth abortions are not legal, no one supports them, and you know that.
You also know that Donald Trump can’t say that he won’t sign a national abortion ban, and you know why.
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Chris Graham
