I report on the homepage:
In September 2016, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump made a number of promises to pro-life leaders and voters. One of those promises was that, if elected president, he was committed to “signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide.”
That legislation, also known at the time as the “20-week abortion ban,” was supported by almost all congressional Republicans, as well as Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. When the GOP House passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (which Senate Democrats filibustered), President Trump expressed strong support for it.
But as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination for a third time in 2024, Donald Trump may be abandoning his commitment to signing any national limit on late-term abortions. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump’s “campaign did not directly answer whether Trump agreed with the six-week ban in Florida or what policies he would support nationally but instead said Trump believes the issue should be left up to individual states.” Moreover, in private conversations with advisers, Trump has reportedly said: “‘States’ rights’ . . . adding his assessment that they should not talk about it.”
“President Donald J. Trump believes that the Supreme Court, led by the three Justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the State level,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the Post in a statement. On Friday, National Review asked Cheung via email if Trump still supports the federal late-term abortion limit he backed as presidential candidate and president; Trump’s spokesman has not yet replied.