Trump Makes the GOP Pro-Choice
The Trumpification of the GOP is finally complete
Abortion is a morally complex issue. I’m pro-life, but with lots of footnotes! I can appreciate aspects of what pro-choice advocates are trying to preserve, like women’s control over their own bodies, even if I’m not convinced by all of their reasonings or alarmed by some of the outcomes.
Generally, the American GOP has been the pro-life party, at least since the 1970s. But Trump has now taken the GOP in a pro-choice direction.
“My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” Trump said in an Aug. 23 social media post. Trump soon after stated in an interview that he would vote in favor of abortion rights in his home state of Florida, where abortion is on the ballot. He said that the "six-week [ban] is too short," and he was in favor of "more time" for a woman to decide to terminate a pregnancy.
Later, in a subsequent interview, probably with his campaign manager begging on his knees, Trump did tell a reporter that while he still believed a six-week limit was too restrictive, the Democrat view on abortion was too extreme, so he would be voting against a repeal of the Florida abortion limit.
But the genie is out of the bottle. The GOP has moved pro-choice. The question is simply how far.
This is a big deal and it marks a sea change in the GOP’s position on abortion under Trump’s influence.
But I’m not surprised. Trump’s 2016 sudden epiphany on the evils of abortion, even saying that women should be punished for having one, happened as he began his bid for the White House and he wanted to garner religious conservative support. In the same way now, his flip-flop on the issue is because abortion access is proving to be among the chief reasons why many people, mostly suburban women, are unlikely to vote for him. His views on abortion were always and only an expedience!
What does Trump’s 180 on abortion mean?
Pete Wehner writing in The Atlantic put it clearly: “The pro-life justification for supporting Trump has just collapsed.”