Former President Donald Trump says the states should decide abortion rules ‘by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both.’
Former President Donald Trump said on April 8 that decisions on abortion restrictions should be left to states, as he declined to back a national-level limit.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” President Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social, his social media platform.
“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people,” he added.
The former president also said he supports fertility treatments like in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
The former president had promised to disclose his stance on “abortion and abortion rights” as a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy is set to take effect in Florida, his home state. Florida residents will vote in November on a ballot initiative that would allow abortions through roughly 26 weeks of gestation. When he was president, President Trump supported a 20-week national ban. While campaigning, he’s criticized six-week bans.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said that President Trump’s position was disappointing.
“Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act,” she said in a statement.
In its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the earlier Supreme Court precedent that deemed access to abortion a constitutional right, returning the ability to regulate abortions early in pregnancy to the states.
