Senator JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, confirmed to reporters on Saturday that former President Donald Trump is “consistent” in his views on defunding Planned Parenthood.
A journalist asked Vance, R-Ohio, whether a future Trump administration would discourage Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health care group that has drawn opposition from many conservatives for its pro-abortion rights positions.
“On the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean our position is that we don’t think taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance said after Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump campaign for the first time. It will remain a consistent vision.”
In 2021, 93.5% of abortions were performed at or before 13 weeks’ gestation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this year. About 5.7% of abortions were performed between 14 and 20 weeks, and 0.9% were performed at 21 weeks or longer.
The Trump campaign and Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to requests for further comment Sunday evening.
Lauren Hitt, spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, denounced Vance’s comments, saying in a statement that “a second Trump term is too great a risk for American women and their families.”
“The only way to prevent an out-of-control Trump and his MAGA allies from taking away the freedoms of American women is to elect Vice President Harris, who will defend women’s access to health care and reproductive freedom,” Hitt continued.
Democrats have repeatedly highlighted Trump’s comments on abortion and claimed he would work to ban it.
In response, Trump has tried to portray a softer stance on abortion, saying in a social media post Tuesday that he would veto a federal abortion ban.
And former first lady Melania Trump reportedly discussed her receptiveness to abortion rights in her upcoming memoir, with The Guardian reporting that she wrote, “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?”
“A woman’s fundamental right to individual liberty over her own life gives her the power to terminate her pregnancy if she so chooses,” she reportedly continued. NBC News has not independently verified the contents of the book, which has not yet been released.
Trump said in a Fox News interview last week that he and his wife “were talking about it, and I said, ‘You have to write what you believe.’ I’m not going to tell you what to do. to believe.'”
An NBC News poll from September found that 54% of registered voters think Harris would be better at handling the issue of abortion, while 33% chose Trump.
Vance acknowledged voters’ relative lack of confidence in Republicans on abortion during last week’s vice presidential debate.
“I think what I take away from that as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent lives in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that we, my party, have to do so much better of a job at making money. restore the trust of the American people on this issue, when quite frankly they just don’t trust us,” Vance said.
While Trump has tried to make the issue front and center during the campaign ahead of the November election, his administration has taken several steps to limit access to the proceedings.
He has praised the three Supreme Court nominees he appointed to the Supreme Court for voting to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for the procedure.
“After fifty years of failure, with no one even coming close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, to the shock of everyone,” Trump posted on Truth Social last year, a sentiment he has repeated during his campaign. .
In 2019, Planned Parenthood withdrew from Title
Planned Parenthood was already barred from using federal funds for abortions, although anti-abortion rights groups have argued that it is impossible for the government to verify that funding for other services does not help subsidize abortion services.
President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s rule, allowing clinics that offer abortion referrals to once again receive federal funds.
In 2016, then-candidate Trump said in a debate that he would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, saying he would “defund it because I’m pro-life.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
