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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Former president Donald Trump has been dodging difficult questions about abortion as he seeks a second term, working to navigate an issue widely seen as an election liability for Republicans.
Last month, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee sought to put the issue to rest by declaring that he thinks abortion limits should be left to the states. After months of speculation, Trump also declined to endorse a national abortion ban.
"My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both," he said. "And whatever they decide must be the law of the land—in this case, the law of the state."
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Trump's announcement was met with anger from conservatives, while President Joe Biden and Democrats dismissed it as empty rhetoric.
Shortly after Trump's announcement, Biden said his rival was "responsible for creating the cruelty and the chaos that has enveloped America" since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. He warned voters not to trust Trump, saying that he would sign a national abortion ban if it reached his desk.
With abortion set to be a top campaign issue in the 2024 election, Trump is likely to face pressure in the coming months to give clear answers on what he would do on abortion if he wins back the White House in November.
Trump repeatedly answered questions about how he would handle various abortion questions by saying it should be left up to the states in an April 12 interview with Time magazine. He also declined to comment on access to the abortion pill Mifepristone, saying that he would be detailing his stance on the drug and the Comstock Act—a 19th century law limiting the mailing of materials including those used for abortion—soon. Several weeks on, no statements have been released.
"President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion," Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign press secretary, said in a statement to Newsweek.
"Joe Biden and the Democrats are radically out of touch with the majority of Americans in their support for abortion up until birth and even after birth, and forcing taxpayers to fund it."
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"The tricky thing for Trump is that he both has people who are in the base who expect him to do something meaningfully conservative on these issues, and then he has a lot of other voters who don't," Mary Ruth Ziegler, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law and a leading historian on the U.S. abortion debate, told Newsweek.
"So far, how I think he's tried to bridge the divide is just by not answering the question at all in some instances, or by making these sort of vague gestures to things like states' rights without spelling out what that means."
It's possible that Trump isn't answering questions because he doesn't know what to say, Ziegler said. "It's also possible, I think more likely, that he's just trying to avoid no-win situations."
On the campaign trail, Trump has labeled himself the "most pro-life president in American history" and spoke about appointing the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022. The bombshell decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization led to most Republican-controlled states putting new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban it at every stage of pregnancy.
But Trump is also said to be worried that taking positions viewed as too extreme could cost him and the GOP at the ballot box—and that ultimately, winning is most important.
"Always go by your heart, but we must win. We have to win," he said in his announcement last month.
The Biden campaign is hoping that anger over the Dobbs decision and the harsh restrictions enacted in states since will drive voters to Biden.
Trump is "scrambling on the abortion issue," the president said at a campaign event in April. "He's worried voters are going to hold him accountable for overturning Roe v. Wade and for the cruelty and chaos that it's created."
Despite taking a more cautious approach to abortion now, Trump's 2016 campaign "provides plenty of footage to tie him to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe and the right to access abortion," said Joshua Wilson, a professor of political science at the University of Denver and author of The New States of Abortion Politics.
Trump "very publicly campaigned on the assertion that if he were elected, he would change the Supreme Court and overturn Roe," Wilson told Newsweek.
"Both things have happened, and both are proving to be unpopular and problematic for Trump and the GOP. What's more, the post-Dobbs political landscape has provided a steady display of unpopular policies that are clear illustrations of how the effects of overturning Roe run past allowing states to ban abortion."
Wilson said it "both keeps the issue alive and demonstrates that while the court majority asserted that the impacts would be limited, that was never realistic."
Given the unpopularity of severe abortion restrictions, Trump will "try to avoid the abortion issue wherever possible," Paul Goren, professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, told Newsweek. "Public support for keeping abortion legal in all or most cases has long outpaced support for banning it."
Biden, on the other hand, "will emphasize his commitment to defending and expanding abortion rights; he will blame Trump for the Dobbs decision; and he will label Trump a pro-life extremist," Goren added.
"This is a winning position for Biden and Democrats, so they will bring it up frequently to keep Trump on the defensive. Trump will try to dodge the issue by saying it's up to states to decide and by pivoting to issues like immigration and the cost of living. Despite his efforts to change the subject, Trump will have to face the abortion issue often during the campaign and I expect the issue will hurt Trump at the polls."
Abortion has been a winning issue for Democrats since Roe was overturned, with Democrats denying Republicans the sweeping victory they had expected in the 2022 midterm elections. Voters have also sided with abortion rights supporters every time the issue has been directly on the ballot since Roe's fall.
The anger over the overturning of Roe "has proved very effective in mobilizing participation in states where abortion has been on the ballot," Louis DeSipio, professor of political science at University of California, Irvine, told Newsweek. "This will undoubtedly work to the advantage of President Biden and the Democrats."
Democrats are hoping that "the issue will motivate nontraditional voters, especially young voters, to turn out in November," Kevin Wagner, a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, said.
"The fact that there are referenda on reproductive rights in states like Florida may help boost turnout for women and young voters." But Wagner cautioned that there is no guarantee that voters who turnout to vote because of abortion-related ballot measures will also choose Democratic candidates.
Trump is counting on enough people accepting that he won't do anything to ban abortion nationwide if he returns to the White House, Ziegler said.
She pointed to a recent CBS News poll that found only 33 percent of registered voters in Arizona think Trump would make abortion illegal if reelected, while a majority thought he would leave the issue to the states.
"Those are the kind of numbers Trump is banking on," she said. "If people don't like his abortion position, and he's convinced them...he's not going to do anything, and therefore it doesn't need to be their most important issue, then it doesn't matter what he says the rest of the time."
Trump "has skillfully muddied his own positions in a way that has modestly worked to his advantage," DeSipio added. "Although he takes credit for appointing the justices that overturned Roe, he also speaks of state authority to set limits on abortion rights. As a result, some voters do not make the connection between Trump and changes that are going on in abortion access in many states."
Democrats and Biden "will certainly remind voters of the role of the Trump appointees in the Dobbs decision," he said. "For low information voters, however, this messaging may prove insufficient."
Another challenge for Democrats is that polling suggests other issues, particularly the economy and immigration, are more important to many voters.
This indicates that "the experience of state elections when abortion dominated the discussion are unlikely to be repeated in November," DeSipio said.
Wagner added that much "is going to depend on which issues are at the front of voters' minds in November. Right now, many voters are focused on immigration and the economy, and it appears that the Trump campaign would prefer to focus on those issues. It's just too early to know where the campaign will be by election day."
Ziegler said Trump could ultimately prove to be more extreme on abortion if he wins a second term, since there would be no concerns about reelection.
"So Trump might actually do much more on abortion than he did in his first term, because all of the political gravity that was keeping him from doing anything top experimental no longer will apply," she commented.
"The irony is the Biden administration may be right about what Trump would do, but that voters won't care until Trump's in office."
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