It is thanks to President Donald Trump that 18 states have pro-life laws protecting unborn children at 12 weeks or sooner. His administration achieved what many deemed to be impossible, appointing pro-life Justices to the Supreme Court and finally ridding our country of Roe v. Wade. Now states like Texas and Florida are able to protect unborn babies with beating hearts, and who can feel pain.
Since 2016, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has been in the trenches in every election for Donald Trump. In 2016, 2020, and now again in 2024, we have deployed field teams in key battleground states to send him to the White House. Yet for all he has done to further the cause of life and for all our organization has done to support him, Trump's statement on abortion this week was a step backwards. Despite expressing support for the rights of states to pass pro-life laws, Trump's wrong turn on the issue is a political liability that threatens to undo the progress made since Dobbs v. Jackson.
Moments after referencing the Democrats' agenda of allowing abortion in all nine months, Trump outlined a states' rights position that will allow exactly that in the majority of states which have no limits on abortion. These states allow babies to be aborted after the point they can feel pain. Some allow abortion of babies past the point of viability and into the third trimester.
These state laws put the U.S. in the same category as egregious human rights abusers like China and North Korea, which also allow all-trimester abortion. Our country is more extreme than the vast majority of European nations, which limit elective abortions to 15 weeks or earlier. Under the status quo, brutal late-term abortion is legal in most states. Trump's declaration ultimately plays into the hands of a radical Democratic Party that is united in erasing pro-life protections at the federal and state level.
Through litigation and ballot measures, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are enshrining late-term abortion in pro-life states. When Big Abortion can out-fund pro-lifers by a two-to-one margin, as it did in Michigan and Ohio, it can easily deceive voters into voting for measures that eliminate all protections for the unborn. By using vague language and running ads that lie about women's ability to get miscarriage care, Big Abortion hijacks direct democracy to increase its ability to profit off the lives of unborn babies and the health, safety, and well-being of their mothers.
These attacks are not reserved to the state level. Democrats have spent months blasting ahead on their federal abortion plans. President Joe Biden and his friends in Congress are committed to enshrining a federal "right" to abortion through measures far more extreme than Roe, like the so-called Women's Health Protection Act. If successful, Democrats will wipe out states' rights on the issue altogether.
Yet when confronted with the Democrats' extreme measures, Trump cedes ground on the life issue by choosing states' rights over human rights.
This is politically unwise.
President Trump should buck the political consultants' advice to bury his head in the sand on this issue and align himself with the majority of Americans who support protecting babies once they can feel pain. Poll after poll—from Harvard-Harris to Marist and AP-NORC—show that around two-thirds of Americans support limiting abortion after the first trimester or around 15 weeks.
President Trump would be smart to avoid pursuing the same disastrous route that has resulted in Democratic victories again and again. The 2022 midterm elections proved that Republican candidates can't afford to downplay or ignore the abortion issue. The Democrats have made abortion a leading issue for their party, which means Republicans have a choice to define their federal stance—or be defined by Democrats and lose accordingly.
It's true that Trump was the most pro-life president we have ever had. But the fight isn't over. We hope and pray he will realize the job isn't finished. We need a leader who will resume the battle for America's children.
Kelsey Pritchard is director of state public affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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