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topicnews · September 20, 2024

Trump’s true face on abortion rights emerges • Ohio Capital Journal

Trump’s true face on abortion rights emerges • Ohio Capital Journal

Former President Donald Trump had ample opportunity at last week’s debate to declare that he would use his veto to block a national abortion ban.

But he kept refusing to do it.

That says a lot, because Trump has lied about many issues throughout the debate, including about inflation during the Biden administration, about migrants coming to the U.S. after escaping prisons and mental institutions, and about “the dogs eating…they eating the cats” in Springfield, Ohio.

To soften Republicans’ disastrous poll numbers on abortion, they are pretending to be moderate on the issue. In Michigan, the state Republican Party has dropped dozens of mailers into voters’ mailboxes, including one declaring, “Trump will not sign a federal abortion ban.”

Trump has now undermined that message, as has his unsuccessful running mate, Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who confidently said the same thing.

On Sunday, Vance admitted in an embarrassed interview: “I think I’ve learned my lesson and I don’t speak for the president until he and I have actually talked about an issue.”

America is still a world leader in scientific innovation, but after the Roe reversal, many women are denied life-saving medical care.

But one thing must be clear: If Trump wins another term, he wouldn’t even have to sign a bill of Congress; he could take sweeping executive action to eliminate abortion rights. His Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could revoke approval for medication abortion – the most common method used in the United States. He could also revive the Comstock Act of 1873 to prohibit the mailing of abortion pills.

Let’s be honest. There’s little reason to believe Trump wouldn’t support a federal abortion ban. As president, he cracked down on Planned Parenthood and nominated numerous anti-abortion figures to lower courts. In March, he even supported a nationwide ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy that would override laws in states like Michigan where abortion is legal.

And he has repeatedly boasted about the constitutional protection of abortion through Roe v. Wade. He did it again just days after his disastrous performance at the debate against Harris.

“Thanks to the long-sought (52 years!) overturning effort of everyone, including Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, and virtually all legal scholars and experts, and with the help of six very wise and courageous Supreme Court justices, I have succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade – something few would have thought possible!” he wrote on social media.

Three of these six “very wise and courageous” judges were appointed by none other than Trump. And of course, the termination Roe v. Wade was something only conservatives were calling for, and it was very unpopular – no matter how often Trump claimed otherwise.

What happened after her ruling in June 2022 was unfortunately predictable. Many states had trigger laws, which meant that abortion was immediately illegal as soon as roe was rejected. About a third of all American women lost access to abortion.

In Michigan, our 1931 law criminalizing abortion was first delayed by the courts, then delayed later that year by voters, who overwhelmingly voted to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution.

But other state abortion bans remained in place. And some states, like Indiana, passed a near-total ban after roe fell, while Idaho and Tennessee passed laws making it illegal to assist minors in leaving the state for abortion care.

The next frontier appears to be making it illegal for adults to have an abortion in other states. And Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term, contains elaborate plans for a federal surveillance state for women’s fertility and health.

It is no wonder that Harris has made “freedom” one of her central themes this campaign.

While Trump claims that “abortion rights are currently being voted on across the United States,” that is also not true. Only five states – Michigan is one of them – have been able to vote on protecting reproductive rights in their state laws.

In most states where abortion is illegal, voters have not had the opportunity to cast their vote through ballot initiatives. Republicans in Arkansas, for example, successfully removed such a measure from this year’s ballot.

These bans have already had real and terrifying effects on women and girls. Young rape victims have been forced to give birth to children, something Vance described as “uncomfortable.” “For me, the question is really about the baby,” he added.

Hadley Duvall, a Kentucky incest survivor turned reproductive rights advocate, has shared her painful story in Michigan and across the country, including at the Democratic National Convention. Duvall, now 22, said how grateful she was to have had a choice during her pregnancy, and that’s something everyone deserves.

“Telling a 12-year-old girl that she has to have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” she said.

In states where abortion is illegal, any miscarriage can be considered a potential crime, so women who want to become mothers suffer because hospitals refuse to treat women in crisis, resulting in a patient suffering a miscarriage in a hospital bathroom.

Amanda Zurawski had premature rupture of her membranes at 18 weeks pregnant and was initially denied an abortion in Texas because her fetus was showing cardiac activity – until she suffered sepsis. She ended up in the intensive care unit with septic shock. She also spoke about her trauma at the DNC with her husband by her side.

“Every time I tell our story, my heart breaks for the little girl we wanted so much, for the doctors and nurses who couldn’t help me give birth safely, for Josh who was afraid of losing me too,” she said.

Some women cannot tell their story, like Amber Nicole Thurman, a healthy Georgia mother of a 6-year-old who was denied a necessary dilation and curettage (D&C) to remove remaining fetal tissue from her body. Yet in her state, performing a routine procedure could land doctors in prison for 10 years.

So Thurman waited in a hospital bed for 20 hours as her organs began to fail before doctors operated on her, ProPublica reports. Thurman died, leaving her son without a mother.

America is still a world leader in scientific innovation, but denying life-saving medical care is a reality for too many women here after Roe’s reversal.

Amanda Zurawski said: “What I went through was simply barbaric and should not have happened. It was completely avoidable. It could have been prevented.”

As horrific as these stories are, things could get even worse for women – in Republican states and in non-Republican states – under a national abortion ban. No one can say they weren’t warned.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) nonprofit organization. Michigan Advance maintains its editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact Editor Susan J. Demas: [email protected]. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.

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