Former president Donald Trump often proclaimed himself the "most pro-life" president in American history, but his recent waffling on abortion rights has made clear what has been evident to so many of us in the trenches for so long: his pro-life bona fides are always secondary to his political ambitions.
That's not to say the former president hasn't done monumental things for our cause.
Trump's imprint on the federal judiciary is undeniable. His appointment of three pro-life justices to the Supreme Court culminated in the seismic decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, toppling the longstanding catastrophe of Roe v. Wade.
For pro-life advocates, this victory was akin to scaling Everest—the most earth-shaking legal victory in the modern pro-life movement.
However, Trump's public statements on abortion over the past few years resemble a choreographed waltz. Initially, he reveled in his role as the architect of Dobbs, basking in the pro-life limelight. But electoral realities nudged him toward a pivot. No longer did he point out his fingerprints on Roe's demise. Instead, he engaged in a delicate double-talk—an attempt to position himself as less extreme than some fellow Republicans.
Just this month, Trump's position on abortion has evolved from supporting restrictions to opposing a national limit, and from advocating for states' rights to determine their own abortion laws to challenging an Arizona court decision that did just that.
Is the former president discerning the moral implications of weighing the rights of the unborn child against the rights of women in unexpected pregnancies? Not a chance. Donald Trump is merely tallying up the electoral votes to reach 270. Despite his claims of "not being a politician," this approach reeks of calculated Swamp tactics.
The situation is Arizona lays this all out clearly.
The state's supreme court on April 9 revived an 1864 law that effectively bans all abortions, with exceptions only to save the mother's life. This swing-state ruling delivered a massive political gift to Democrats, who seized the moment to highlight the consequences of Trump's abortion position. As a campaign spokesperson for President Joe Biden aptly remarked, "This is what leaving it to the states looks like."
President Biden himself has a heterodox view of abortion within his party. In 2015, he said there was "plenty of room within the Democratic Party for prolifers." As vice president and as a presidential candidate, he supported the Hyde Amendment—which banned public funds from being spent on abortion. After pro-choice advocates pressured him, he eventually backed away from that support in June 2019.
Just last week, the New York Times characterized both Biden and Trump as "imperfect messengers" on abortion. That's exactly right. But their imperfection as messengers makes them perfect policymakers for this moment, when most Americans have complex, nuanced, and often counterintuitive views on the nation's most contentious issue.
It's time for the pro-life movement to divorce Donald Trump and steer back toward policy solutions that work. That means it's time to start engaging with Democrats again.
Doing so could moderate the more extreme positions within my party. The most effective strategy would be to propose a 15-week limit on abortion, with exceptions afterward under certain circumstances such as rape, incest, or if the mother's life is in danger. This is a less restrictive standard than those in most European nations, including Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and even Denmark and Finland.
Given that our Democratic president faces difficult reelection prospects and has expressed pro-life sympathies in the past, it would be strategically wise for him to make concessions to pro-life voices within the party. If so, a 15-week limit on abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother's life, could gain bipartisan acceptance under President Biden's leadership. This would establish a new and popular national norm that brings together a wide range of perspectives on a deeply divisive area.
A pro-life movement that continues to embrace Donald Trump and ignore Joe Biden is a movement without a future in the United States. A pro-life movement that embraces the reality of the moment can deliver on its promise to uphold the dignity of every person.
Kristen Day is the executive director of Democrats for Life of America.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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