Trump to Decide ‘Pretty Soon’ on a National Abortion Policy

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage with supporters, campaign staff, and family members for a primary night party at the Sheraton in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump will reveal his stance on a national abortion ban soon and warned Republicans not to push for stringent laws that could adversely affect elections.

Last month, a New York Times article suggested that President Trump could support a 16-week national ban on abortion. Asked about the rumor in a March 17 interview with Fox, the former president said, “We’re going to find out and pretty soon I’m going to be making a decision. And I would like to see if we could do that at all, I would like to see if we could make both sides happy.” The Democrats “are the radicals on this issue because [they think] it’s okay to have an abortion in seven, eight, nine months, and even after birth.

“If you look at France, if you look at different places in Europe, if you look at a lot of the civilized world, they have a period of time [for abortion]. But you can’t go out seven months and eight months and nine months.”

The former president said that his stance on abortions hasn’t hurt him “from the standpoint of elections.” However, many other Republicans have been “hurt a lot” by speaking on the issue. He suggested this was because GOP members were taking an extreme side on the matter.

“I think you have to have the three exceptions” to abortion laws, which refers to allowing abortions in cases involving rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother.

“I tell people, number one, you have to go with your heart. You have to go with your heart. But beyond that, you also have to get elected. And if you don’t have the three exceptions, I think it’s very, very hard to get elected,” President Trump said.

“We had a gentleman from Pennsylvania who was doing pretty well. He refused to go with the exceptions. And he lost in a landslide for governor. Nice man. Lost in a landslide,” he said, referring to Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Pa.) who lost the Pennsylvania governor’s race in November 2022.

“You have to go with the exceptions. And the number of weeks, I'll be coming out with a recommendation fairly soon. I think the recommendation will be accepted.”

President Trump had earlier warned Republicans against trying to implement too strict abortion policies as it could harm the chances of the party’s electoral success.

In January, President Trump said that while he was opposed to abortion, he is against the so-called “heartbeat bills” which seek to prevent pregnant women from getting an abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat is detected.

“A lot of people ... talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks,” he said. “I want to get something when people are happy. This has been tearing our country apart for 50 years.”

Polling on Abortion

Abortion is a key topic in the 2024 race. According to a recent KFF poll, 12 percent of respondents said that abortion was the most important issue in the elections.

“More than 1 in 4 Black women voters (28 percent), and about a fifth of Democratic women (22 percent), women who live in states where abortion is banned (19 percent), women voters who plan to vote for President Biden (19 percent), and women of reproductive age (18-49) (17 percent) identify as abortion voters.”

Another poll published last month showed that things may be in the former president’s favor on abortion matters as “voters do not currently perceive Trump as a threat to abortion rights.”

“When voters are asked whom they hold responsible for new bans or restrictions, about half of voters attribute responsibility to the Supreme Court, while one-third attribute blame to Republicans in Congress (34 percent) and Republicans in state office (33 percent), and only 24 percent blame Trump,” it said.

“Only a slim majority of voters say the outcome of the 2024 presidential election is ‘very important’ when it comes to addressing abortion (52 percent), compared with other issues that land at the top like inflation (71 percent), taxes and government spending (65 percent), national security and foreign policy (65 percent), and immigration (64 percent).”

Some pro-life voters are torn on President Trump not embracing an all-out ban on the practice. During a March for Life rally in Washington earlier this year, one voter insisted that there should be no compromise on the issue.

“While Trump was an amazing president for the pro-life movement. We have seen, unfortunately, that he seems to want to compromise on the abortion issue, and we think that it is never okay to compromise on killing innocent children … And that’s what abortion is. And so if I could talk to President Trump right now, I'd maybe ask him what he’s thinking,” the individual told Fox.

Another voter was more supportive of the former president’s stance. “I think Trump is pro-life. I think we'll stick with his vote,” the person said.

“But politically speaking, you know, six weeks is a hard push. You know, my ultimate goal is [a] total ban on abortion. That’s what I would like. But politically speaking, you got to take one step at a time. And I think it’s where Trump is coming from.”