ANALYSIS – During his recent NBC interview, former President Donald Trump called Florida’s recently passed six-week abortion ban “terrible.” The ban was signed into law by his 2024 Republican campaign rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump believes that picking six weeks as the line to draw for abortion banning is not politically viable nationally. He argued that both liberals and conservatives should agree on a compromise solution – a compromise number of weeks.
And to clarify, Trump said the six-week ban was: “terrible. A terrible mistake.”
He was saying that, politically, passing a six-week ban was a mistake, because it charges up the pro-abortion activists and alienates moderate women needed to win nationally.
Like it or not, exit polls in 2022 showed that the rush to ban abortions outright by some states just after Roe v. Wade was reversed scared away a lot of independents and moderate suburban women, contributing to the extremely weak results for Republicans in the last midterm elections. (RELATED: Hannity Suggests GOP Too Extreme On Abortion Following Ohio Debacle)
Trump, the ever-ready wheeler-dealer, also predicted that: “both sides are going to like me,” adding, “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months, you’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy.”
Here, I think Trump made a terrible choice of words. You don’t want the left to like you, even if you are trying to disarm them. But that’s the way he thinks and speaks.
The former president also said that he would be “a mediator” between both sides to come up with a policy that is “good for everybody.”
I take that to mean a compromise timeline on the number of weeks for banning abortion nationwide and what exceptions to make.
Some pro-lifers immediately bashed Trump for his comments. The Christian Post reported on the backlash:
Trump’s criticism of Florida’s law that bans abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of gestation, did not sit well with pro-life activists.
Lila Rose, the founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, took to X to describe the former president’s remarks as “pathetic and unacceptable.”
“Trump is actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning,” Rose wrote. “Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.'”
And then there was conservative culture warrior Matthew Walsh, with whom I usually agree, who called Trump’s remarks “an awful answer from a moral perspective” and “also stupid politically.” (RELATED: These Senate Republicans Voted With Democrats To Approve New VA Abortion Policy)
In his post on X (formerly Twitter), Walsh said that “there is no compromise on abortion that everyone will like.”
“It’s delusional to think otherwise. And contrary to Trump’s claims, almost all Democrats are indeed extreme on this issue,” he added. “You will be hard pressed to find more than maybe two or three on the national stage who don’t want abortion until birth or beyond. You can’t win over Democrats by going squishy on this issue. Republicans have tried that brilliant strategy for decades and accomplished exactly nothing by it.”
But is Trump wrong?
A six-week ban based on a fetal heartbeat sounds very reasonable to me. And it is fine for Florida.
But I know that won’t wash with many other folks across the country who aren’t extreme but prefer another timeline for banning abortion. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is staunchly pro-life, doesn’t believe a 15-week national ban is realistic either.
As governor of South Carolina, Haley signed a 20-week ban, joining 12 other states back then with bans. (RELATED: Pence Calls On GOP 2024 Contenders To Back Minimum 15-Week Abortion Ban)
Polls have shown that many, if not most, Democrats believe in some restrictions on abortion. Most, if not all, Republicans will make exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. Many would be happy with any reasonable ban, whether six, eight or ten weeks.
And Trump isn’t the only one who argues that taking a strident, no-compromise stance on abortion will hurt Republicans nationally. As the Christian Science Monitor reported:
At a closed-door conference meeting in the Capitol earlier this month, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Senate Republicans a briefing that seemed intended to serve as a wake-up call. The Dobbs decision has “recharged the abortion debate and shifted more people (including some Republicans) into the anti-Dobbs ‘pro-choice’ camp,” the political action committee’s report stated. Some senators reportedly left the meeting brainstorming potential new labels, such as “pro-baby,” that could replace the increasingly fraught “pro-life.”
Unlike in the past, when conservative candidates could simply identify themselves as “pro-life” without having to be specific, they are now being peppered with questions about real policy choices: Should abortion be banned at the state or federal level? After how many weeks? With or without exceptions? What about abortion pill restrictions?
At one end of the 2024 spectrum are Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who have strongly leaned into an anti-abortion message. Both candidates have endorsed a national 15-week abortion ban.
By contrast, Mr. Trump, in his “Meet the Press” interview, declined to explicitly endorse a 15-week ban, drawing a rare rebuke this week from Senator Scott. Ms. Haley has outright dismissed a national 15-week ban as unrealistic – one of the “hard truths” that she has been delivering to voters across New Hampshire and Iowa. She says the Supreme Court was “right” to send abortion back to the states.
While I understand and appreciate the 100% pro-life stance, I also want to win the White House and Senate, and expand our lead in the House, so conservatives can keep pushing on this and other issues important to us.
So, Trump may not be wrong. We need to be more tactically flexible to win the bigger war.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Uhh, TaaRump the SCOTUS returned that decision to the states to decide. Run for State Representative in Florida if you don’t like that!
Abortion is States Rights NOT Federal
Leave it up to the states. If their people don’t like it, they can change it locally. That’s what the Constitution intended.
Abortion is one of those topics where NO ONE will EVER be satisfied with the allowances of any city, state, or federal rules and regulations.
With that in mind, me and the rest of America are voting for Trump in 2024. Left-wing liberal loons, narrow-minded experts, and all other nay-sayers can wander around in the woods and swat at mosquitoes.
Yep.
>> Most, if not all, Republicans will make exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. <<
What the Republicans should do is pass federal legislation to ensure the right to abortion in cases of rape, incent, and when necessary to protect the health of the mother. That is, allow states to ban abortion (or not) in cases of perfectly healthy women carrying perfectly normal pregnancies whose health will not be threatened by continuing the pregnancy.
I believe leaving the issue to the states is vastly preferable to a national standard to allow developing babies to be killed up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. The heartbeat limit is the only reasonable limit for a legal abortion. At least leaving the issue to the states would allow moral persons to live in a moral state with a heartbeat law.
I agree totally a woman has a choice about her body. But a woman and a man also must except the consequence of their action and those choices and murder (ABORTION) is not one of those choices.
Choice:
1) Having Sex
2) Having unprotected Sex
3) Not using birth control measures (Male a condom and a women a diaphragm or birth control pile)
4) Not doing personal hygiene.
5)If she doesn’t want to get with child then go have a hysterectomy.
6) Murder (abortion) is not one of the proper choices.
Remember that fetus is a living human being. My understanding it has its own DNA. When did the doctors say a fetus/pre-born child start having feeling and feel pain? Just because it doesn’t look like you doesn’t mean it is not alive and human.
I don’t leave the male out of this either. He has half of the responsibility. If the woman and male ignores these steps they must accept the consequences and the responsibility of there actions.
If a woman and a man will not take the responsibility of their actions in this area would you trust them to take the responsibility of their actions pertaining to you? Think about that.
One is going to ask about rape: report it and go to the hospital for test and a D&C. Same for incest.
What is the woman condition (mental and physical) after the abortion?
I also understand that the majority of the women that have an abortion live with it for the rest of there lives and regret and suffer that decision every day.
There are many people that will not vote for any politiction that is
not pro-life. Me included. I may set this one out.
Trump is pro-life as are Pence and Haley but Haley agrees with Trump. Trump is correct that many women see this as an attack on their rights. Roe v Wade put the issue back to the states where it always should have been. The problem is, currently 8 states have abortion for any reason up to and even after birth. China Joe wanted to codify abortion nationally. Trump specified rape, incest, and the life of the mother as reasons for an abortion. You may not like it but time limits is the only path forward. If you don’t vote you are letting the radical left allow more abortions up to date of birth.
Remember, conservative women do not get abortions, and most of those kids we are saving will be liberal democrats. A study already found that the prison population would be MUCH greater if all those kids of drug addicts etc were born. Don’t sit this one out and let Satan rule.
Due process is the issue here. When does a life obtain the God-given and Constitutional right to due process? Why the arbitrary 15 weeks? Heartbeat seems like the compromise already, as I stand for life at conception.
I hate to say it but Trump’s hatred for DeSantis sickens me. Everything DeSantis does is bad according to Trump. I’m still on the Trump train because he would be great economically and with foreign affairs, but he steps in it way too often.
The Democratic Socialists of America (who run the Democratic Party)figured out a longtime ago to do everything by increments. Conservatives, it seems, have never figured this out. Do a little at a time people.
Abortion after conception -one day or day of delivery is MURDER-full period-stop!