The 2024 presidential election marks the first since the U.S. Supreme Court decided to return abortion authority to the states last year. Since then, it has been a free-for-all, with a patchwork of laws that restrict or protect abortion dotting the nation and, in many cases, spawning legal challenges.
Thus, America’s next president will be thrust into the role of referee in an emotional tug of war over the legality and morality of abortion.
But to win the presidency, each candidate faces a formidable challenge. While thinking about a life-or-death issue, each must also consider the political reality. Each must appease his or her conservative or progressive bloc of supporters. Yet none can afford to alienate independents, whose votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat on Election Day.
In the current climate, voters who used to care little about the abortion issue might be motivated to make it “a much higher priority,” said Michael New, assistant professor of practice at The Catholic University of America.
“I think it creates both opportunities and challenges for both political parties,” he told The Epoch Times.
In recent days, pro-abortion President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and pro-life Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential hopeful, both directed abortion-related barbs at the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis, Trump Spar
Trump drew fire from the left and the right on the abortion issue after his CNN town hall appearance on May 10.The former president, who often responds in a straightforward manner to questions, tiptoed around the topic. Repeatedly asked whether he would sign a federal abortion ban, Trump gave no direct answer. Instead, he made comments such as, “We want to do what’s right for everybody.”
He did denounce “radical” people who want unrestricted access to abortion, even in late-stage pregnancies. Repeating a position he has maintained for years, Trump said he believes that abortions should be allowed under certain circumstances, such as pregnancies involving rape, incest, or life-endangering health conditions.
“He has to do what he has to do,” Trump said, referring to DeSantis. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”
DeSantis declared: “Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost, probably, 99 percent of pro-lifers support.” He said he was proud to sign the law, and he knocked Trump for refusing to answer whether he would sign a similar measure.
New said he viewed Trump’s abortion position as “evolving,” while DeSantis has locked himself into a stance favoring an abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy.
Mission Impossible?
During his CNN appearance, Trump said he would “negotiate” abortion restrictions, “so that people are happy.”“I don’t think President Trump can find legislation that will make everybody happy with this issue. That’s impossible. People disagree,” New said.
Further, NARAL said, 73 percent of voters—“including a majority of 2020 Trump voters” and 3 out of 4 independents—“believe things have gone too far.” As of early May, 19 states had eliminated or restricted abortion, NARAL said.
New cautioned against putting too much weight on abortion polls, as the results are “very sensitive to how they’re worded,” he said.
‘Killing’ Roe v. Wade
PRRI and other surveys have found that about half of Americans disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade.That 1973 ruling classified a woman’s decision to abort a pregnancy as a constitutionally protected right up until the point when a fetus was viable enough to live outside the womb. However, the Supreme Court nullified that ruling by a 6–3 vote in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, stating, “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
Amy O'Donnell, spokeswoman for Texas Alliance for Life, told The Epoch Times that Trump, who appointed three conservative justices during his presidency, deserves credit for his work in the pro-life arena.
“It is important to recognize that President Trump made great gains in the pro-life movement and kept his promises as far as advocating for the protection of life,” she said. “So we have to just pause and show our gratitude for that. He definitely prioritized life in his first presidency.”
In a May 15 post on social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ’shock' of everyone, and for the first time put the pro-life movement in a strong negotiating position over the radicals that are willing to kill babies even into their ninth month, and beyond.
Warning From Biden
Biden, who is running for a second term, used that post as ammunition against Trump.Biden’s Twitter post was viewed 9 million times within a day after it was posted; more than 81,000 people indicated they liked it.
She responded, in part: “Go ‘further’ than allowing the people in different states to [choose] for themselves on what to do about the topic? Yea ... how ‘awful.’”
Throughout his administration, Biden’s office has issued statements describing abortion as a necessary type of “health care.”
“Fundamental rights—to privacy, autonomy, freedom, and equality—have been denied to millions of women across the country, with grave implications for their health, lives, and wellbeing,” the White House statement read. “This ruling will disproportionately affect women of color, low-income women, and rural women.
“President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law.”
Democrats Versus Republicans
Biden’s position appears likely to play well with Democrats, based on PRRI’s findings.When party affiliation is factored into the abortion debate, the differences between Republicans and Democrats appear stark.Only about one-third of Republicans favor keeping most abortions legal; that number has remained relatively steady for more than a decade.
In contrast, support for abortion among Democrats has increased 16 percentage points since 2010; in 2022, 87 percent of Democrats favored abortion access in most cases, the PRRI survey said.
Both Trump and Biden have shifted their attitudes about abortion over the years, too.
By late 2015, Trump was calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the top provider of abortions in the United States. He also was saying he wanted to consider looking at overturning Roe.
Concerns Among Pro-Life Leaders
Trump’s recent remarks have caused pro-life leaders to worry about a possible change in his stance again.Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Trump’s CNN town hall highlighted the importance of the abortion issue in the 2024 election cycle.
A former Louisiana state lawmaker who crafted pro-life legislation, Perkins said that “personhood in the womb is not just a state issue—it is the most profound of all human rights issues” and “it merits federal consideration—and protection.”
In May, when Perkins and other pro-life leaders met with Trump in Miami, “Mr. Trump reaffirmed his commitment to protecting children who can feel pain and are actually sucking their thumb in their mother’s womb,” Perkins said. “His horror at late-term abortion and the incredible idea that some so-called ‘unwanted’ children could be left to die after birth remains unchanged.
Perkins said he would not be endorsing any candidates in the primary but would work with Trump and all other candidates on “issues impacting faith, family, and freedom.”
O'Donnell, the Texas Alliance for Life spokeswoman, said that her group “would like to see a candidate who would like to see every state in the United States look like Texas, where life is protected from conception, on.”
“At a bare minimum, anybody that we endorse must at least be for a 15-week protection of life law that is a federal law across the United States. And that’s just something that we’re going to look for before we put forward any endorsement from our organization,” she said.
O'Donnell acknowledged that while many pro-life advocates favor an all-out abortion ban, “when it comes to protecting life, one of the things that we’ve learned in Texas is that we have to make incremental gains.”
“The first time we try to advance a law may not be the first time that that law passes. But we believe that we’re making some progress, that we’re planting seeds. And then we’re going to keep making the effort until it does pass,” she said.
Not Sole Factor
Some pundits describe abortion as a “wedge issue” that Democrats can use to differentiate themselves from Republicans, as well as to attract votes from Republican-leaning voters who are not strongly against abortion.But others dispute whether abortion wields as much political sway as it once did.
“After 50 years of abortion politics sorting voters, maybe there is nobody left to lash back.”
Perhaps the vast majority of voters who care deeply about abortion or other issues may have already changed their party affiliations to align with the parties’ “increasingly firm” stances on abortion, she suggests.
If Democrats do push hard on the abortion issue, they risk putting off Latino and black Democratic voters, “who are already more conservative than white Democrats on many social issues, including abortion,” Isgur said.
