Trump Has the Solution to GOP's Abortion Problem | Opinion
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA – FEBRUARY 24: Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks during an election night watch party at the State Fairgrounds on February 24, 2024 in Columbia, South Carolina. South Carolina held its Republican primary today.
It’s no secret that Republicans have an abortion problem. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, GOP politicians have been adrift on the issue, cycling through vague messages or trying to ignore it entirely. Democrats, meanwhile, sensing a political opportunity, have attacked mercilessly in election after election, labeling their Republican opponents as extremists while receiving little to no pushback. Needless to say, it hasn’t worked out well for GOP candidates.
Fortunately for Republicans, help might finally be on the way. According to recent reports, former president Donald Trump supports legislation that would provide a federal backstop, limiting abortions after four months—at which point a baby can feel pain—with exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. Such a move would be a game-changer for the upcoming election.
In typical Trumpian style, the position the former president is staking out is far more popular among American voters than among D.C. elites. Poll after poll after poll after poll finds that huge majorities of Americans support limiting abortion by the fourth month, with exceptions for rape and incest. When contrasted with the Democrats’ position of abortion-up-until-birth, voters generally opt for a similar position to Trump’s by margins of 30 to 40 points.
This is exactly what the Republican Party needs—an answer on abortion that doesn’t involve mumbling something about states and nervously changing the subject. It’s also what the pro-life movement needs. Any incremental change we propose has to reflect public opinion in order to have any chance at actually passing Congress, remaining in effect, and saving lives.
The number of lives a four-month limit would save is mind-boggling. Imagine, for a moment, that you had the superhero power to rush around the country and prevent every single non-abortion murder that occurs in the United States—roughly 20,000 a year. Trump’s favored policy alone could save twice as many lives. According to the CDC, about 4 percent—or 40,000—of the nation’s million or so abortions per year occur at 16 weeks or later.
Pro-lifers should jump at this opportunity. We understand the value of each precious human life. While left-wing news outlets have been busy pointing out that this law would only affect a small percentage of abortions each year, pro-lifers know that these deaths are not statistics; they are tragedies. There is no “mere” or “trifling” percentage of babies saved.
Trump’s endorsement of this policy would not only be the savviest political move any Republican leader has made since the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson. It would also, perhaps surprisingly, be one of the boldest. Given the massive popularity of proposals like the one Trump has been considering, one would think that the rest of the party would be rushing to claim a similar position. But in reality, very few have.
Some of the most supposedly stalwart pro-life “champions” in Congress have become so afraid that they hardly talk about abortion at all. The worst of them wash their hands of the issue and argue it’s exclusively a states’ matter. Many of the best of them only have the guts to weakly offer indirect regulation around the periphery of abortion.
But this is what Trump does: he finds the advantageous position on issues that other Republicans are too afraid to touch. He’s done it on immigration, trade, and foreign policy, and he’s done it before on abortion, too. For years prior to 2016, Republicans had been shy and defensive when talking about abortion. Trump, by contrast, recognized where the Democrats’ position was dramatically out of step with the American people. He famously went on offense during the final 2016 presidential debate, describing the horrible reality of the Left’s support for no-limits abortion: “with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that’s okay, and Hillary can say that that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me.”
That message worked in 2016, and Trump’s instincts show signs of working now. Off-year, abortion-focused elections since Dobbs have generally been about 10 points worse for Republicans than the presidential election. The one exception to this has been Virginia. There, Republicans campaigned on a similar gestational limit to Trump’s—15 weeks, with the same exceptions—and ran around 10 points better, nearly gaining a Republican trifecta in a state that has trended dramatically leftward in recent years.
A popular gestational limit is the only way to re-energize the pro-life movement and further the hard work of actually saving lives. Rather than lamenting this development, the political establishment and consultant class should be thrilled. The proposal Trump has talked about would solve their problems and very likely put the GOP back on the offensive on an issue that will feature prominently in this fall’s election. The only alternative—for pro-lifers and professional politicians alike—is defeat. Trump could show, yet again, how to win.
Terry Schilling is the president of American Principles Project. Follow him on X @Schilling1776.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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