Harris Claims Trump Would Signal Nationwide Abortion Ban. This is What We Know

Throughout her career, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris — who can be, heading into the November 2024 election, the Democratic presidential nominee — has made reproductive rights central to her political identification. In actual fact, her unwavering help for entry to abortion is one in all Harris’ strongest appeals among voters, in accordance with The New York Instances. This stands in sharp distinction to her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump — whose strategy to reproductive protections has ranged from pro-choice in 1999 to pro-life as we speak — and whose insurance policies are, at occasions, merely obscure.

In 2016, Trump promised to nominate Supreme Court docket justices who would overturn the courtroom’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that acknowledged a lady’s proper to terminate her being pregnant by abortion. As Trump promised, the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, one thing he later claimed credit for on quite a few events.

“For 54 years they had been attempting to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it,“ he stated throughout a 2024 Fox News town hall. “And I am proud to have completed it.” 

Harris: Trump ‘Will Signal a Nationwide Abortion Ban’

With Roe v. Wade overturned, the duty fell to particular person states to limit, ban, or defend abortion rights as they noticed match, and there it at the moment stands. Nevertheless, Harris has claimed on many events that if Trump had been reelected, he would take it a step additional and try to ban entry to abortion nationwide.

Most just lately, while speaking at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia on Sept. 20, 2024, she stated: “If [Trump] is elected once more, I’m sure he’ll signal a nationwide abortion ban, which might outlaw abortion in each single state.“

As the 2024 presidential race gained momentum, Trump’s place, at occasions, took on extra ambiguous tones. In the course of the Sept. 10 presidential debate, when Harris stated Trump would signal a nationwide abortion ban if reelected, he denied it. “There she goes once more, it is a lie. I am not signing a ban, and there is not any cause to signal a ban.” 

The complete interplay went as follows, beginning at minute 24:12 of the video under:

Nevertheless, he additionally skirted the direct query, “Would you veto a nationwide abortion ban?“ twice, first claiming he would not need to veto it as a result of Congress would by no means cross such a ban. When moderator Lindsey Davis identified that Trump’s operating mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said in an August 2024 interview with NBC that Trump would veto a nationwide abortion ban if Congress handed such a ban, Trump responded: “Effectively, I did not talk about it with JD In all equity. JD — And I do not thoughts if he has a sure view, however I believe he was talking for me however I actually did not.“

In the course of the debate, Harris additionally claimed that “In his Undertaking 2025 there could be a nationwide abortion ban,“ which isn’t true; Undertaking 2025 doesn’t explicitly name for a nationwide abortion ban. The Undertaking does goal to severely limit access to abortions, equivalent to by stopping the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) from selling abortion as well being care and recommending the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) cease selling and approving requests for manufacturing abortion capsules. 

Moreover, Trump has actively distanced himself from Undertaking 2025’s proposals. “I’ve nothing to do with Undertaking 2025,“ he said during the debate with Harris. “That is on the market. I have not learn it. I do not need to learn it, purposely.“

Has Trump Ever Supported a Nationwide Abortion Ban?

Trump’s more moderen statements however, it bears mentioning that his public pronouncements on abortion rights have jumped all around the map since he first declared himself “pro-choice in each respect” on Meet the Press in 1999.

In his e book “The America We Deserve,” revealed in 2000, Trump stated he would ban partial-birth abortion regardless of his “pro-choice instincts”: 

When Tim Russert requested me on Meet the Press if I might ban partial-birth abortion if I had been president, my pro-choice instincts led me to say no. After the present, I consulted two docs I respect and, upon studying extra about this process, I’ve concluded that I might certainly help a ban. I’ve nothing to lose by expressing my opinions.

In 2018, Trump turned the primary president to talk on the annual March for Life anti-abortion rally. During his speech, he stated he “strongly supported the Home of Consultant’s Ache-Succesful invoice, which might finish painful, late-term abortions nationwide.” The bill proposed making it against the law for any individual to carry out or try to carry out an abortion if the possible post-fertilization age of the fetus is 20 weeks or extra. “I name upon the Senate to cross this vital legislation and ship it to my desk for signing,“ he stated.

As just lately as March 2024, while speaking on the WABC radio show “Sid & Associates within the Morning,“ Trump indicated that he would possibly again a 15-week federal abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and life-threatening emergencies. 

“The variety of weeks, now, persons are agreeing on 15, and I am pondering by way of that, and it will come out to one thing that is very affordable,“ he stated. “However persons are actually — even hard-liners are agreeing, appears to be 15 weeks, appears to be a quantity that persons are agreeing at. However I will make that announcement on the acceptable time.“

A couple of month previous to that, in February 2024, nameless sources claimed Trump privately instructed advisers and allies that he preferred the thought of a 16-week nationwide abortion ban (with the identical exceptions), according to reporting by The New York Instances. 

April 2024: Trump Says He Would Not Signal a Nationwide Abortion Ban

By April 2024, Trump appeared to have landed on a transparent, agency stance: He declined to endorse a national abortion ban and stated abortion coverage must be left to the person states.

In a video he posted to Fact Social on April 8, he stated:

My view is now that we have now abortion the place everyone needed it from a authorized standpoint, the states will decide by vote or laws or maybe each. And no matter they determine have to be the legislation of the land — on this case, the legislation of the state.

When ABC Information requested Trump if he would signal a nationwide abortion ban as he walked the tarmac on April 10, 2024, he appeared to easily reply: “No.”

In sum, though Trump has flirted with the thought of a nationwide abortion ban at numerous occasions, as of this writing in September 2024, Trump’s public stance is that particular person states ought to wield management over abortion coverage.

Sources