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Anti-abortion leaders remain undeterred as Trump says for the first time he will veto a federal abortion ban

CHICAGO (AP) — Anti-abortion leaders said Wednesday they are undeterred after Donald Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he has said so explicitly after previously declining questions on the subject to answer.

During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Republican presidential nominee posted on his social media platform Truth Social that “everyone knows that under no circumstances would I support, and in fact veto, a federal abortion ban.”

He then said abortion rights should be left to the states — his most frequent response to questions on the issue since Roe v. Wade was overturned by a conservative majority, including three of Trump’s own appointees to the Supreme Court. In the two years since the ruling, abortion rights have emerged as a major vulnerability for the Republican Party, which has struggled to find a consistent message on the path forward while boosting turnout for Democrats.

With the election less than five weeks away, Trump is trying to bridge a gap between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights. The former president is trying to make up ground with women — a group that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris views more favorably nationally — in the handful of battleground states likely to determine the winner.

“Trump’s statement last night is just one example of Republicans desperately trying to rebrand themselves on abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at the national abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “But at the end of the day, the only thing that has actually changed is their rhetoric on this issue. It is their reaction to seeing the political consequences of this deeply unpopular policy position.”

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Major anti-abortion groups disagreed with Trump but said they were not discouraged by his latest comments on a national abortion ban.

Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion organization Students for Life of America, said: “There are different approaches in the pro-life movement about the best way to achieve our goal.”

“Donald Trump has his own strategy to keep the federal government out of the abortion business,” she said. “We may not agree with him on the long-term goals of our movement, but in the short term we can work in that direction.”

Hawkins added that there are other avenues Trump could use to restrict abortion nationally, including defunding Planned Parenthood and appointing anti-abortion officials to head major federal departments.

Carol Tobias, chair of the National Right to Life Committee, said she was not surprised by Trump’s comments.

But honestly, neither party in Congress will get the votes to pass a national law unless something very unusual happens in this election. “So that wasn’t really at the top of our list.”

Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Votes, meanwhile, said she doesn’t believe Trump’s vow to veto a national abortion ban, calling him “a legendary flip-flopper who says what he says.” thinks that will help him most at that moment. .” She said that even without a national abortion ban, Trump could restrict abortion nationwide by appointing anti-abortion judges and federal officials or by reviving the Comstock Act, a 19th-century “anti-vice” law that advocates of abortion rights. could endanger access to medication abortion.

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Trump had not previously said whether he would veto a national ban. In fact, he repeatedly declined to say whether he would veto such a ban during the presidential debate with Harris in September, although it is extremely unlikely that either political party could win enough votes in Congress to pass national abortion legislation.

In August, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, said the former president would veto a national ban. But Trump demurred on the topic during the September debate, saying, “I didn’t discuss it with JD.”

The question has since lingered amid Trump’s shifting positions on the crucial issue.

Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller on Tuesday rejected the idea that Trump had changed his position on the matter.

“President Trump has made it clear, what he has been saying all along, that it should be back in the United States,” he told reporters after the debate. “Nothing changed. He always said it should be back in the United States.

Vance falsely claimed during Tuesday’s debate that he himself has never supported a national ban, although he said in 2022 that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” and supported Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to have a ​to impose a national ban on abortion after fifteen weeks. pregnancy In 2023, he expressed support for a “minimum national standard” for abortion, including after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Republicans have been accused of trying to recast federal abortion restrictions to “minimum national standards” to distort their own positions on the issue amid the political unpopularity of the Republican Party’s position on abortion.

“It doesn’t matter what they call it,” Vasquez-Giroux said. “What matters is how it will affect everyone we know, love and care about. If you call it a limit or a ban, it’s the same thing. , and ordinary people will suffer.”

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About 6 in 10 Americans believe their state should generally allow someone to get a legal abortion if he or she does not want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Voters in seven states, including conservative-leaning Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either protected abortion rights or rejected efforts to restrict them in the statewide ballot in the past two years.

Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, has maintained that Trump would sign a national abortion ban if re-elected, blaming him for abortion restrictions in parts of the country since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which once granted a constitutional right to abortion.

Trump has repeatedly taken credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and boasted about returning the abortion issue to the states. But in about half of states, voters do not have direct input through citizen initiatives, and in states where abortion is on the agenda this year, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies are using a wide range of strategies to counter the proposed vote. initiatives.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to improve its explanatory reporting on elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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