Trump's many, many positions on abortion: A timeline – NBC News
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Donald Trump’s video statement on abortion Monday — saying the legalities around the procedure should be up to the states — came after months of his publicly and privately discussing the possibility of a federal abortion ban.
Trump’s positions on abortion have been a roller coaster for decades. At one point in 2015, during his run for president, he took “five positions on abortion in three days,” according to the Washington Post and detailed by NBC News at the time.
Here are some of the highlights:
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Trump said, “I am very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion … I just believe in choice. Again, it may be a little bit of a New York background because there is some different attitude in some different parts of the country … I was raised in New York and grew up and worked and everything else in New York City. But I am strongly pro-choice.”
Asked if he would ban any abortion, including “partial-birth” abortion, Trump said, “No. I am pro-choice in every respect in as far as it goes. But I just hate it.”
In a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference while mulling a 2012 run for the White House, Trump laid out his positions, including a new posture on abortion.
“I am pro-life,” he said. “Against gun control… I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it with something that makes sense to people in business and not bankrupt the country.”
In an interview with CNN at the time, Trump said: “I would look at the good aspects of it and I would also look because I’m sure they do some things properly and good, good for women, and I would look at that.”
Trump in a 2016 debate said he would cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood while offering the marquee abortion rights organization a compliment.
“Millions of millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood,” Trump said. “I would defund it because I’m pro-life, but millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood.”
While he was still a GOP candidate for president, Trump said those who seek abortions should be subject to “some form of punishment.” When asked in an MSNBC town hall if there should be punishment, Trump said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”
“For the woman?” host Chris Matthews asked Trump.
“Yes,” Trump replied.
Trump said he’ll appoint the number of justices necessary to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe. v. Wade.
In his confirmation hearing, Gorsuch referenced “settled” precedent on abortion.
“Once a case is settled, that adds to the determinacy of the law. What was once a hotly contested issue is no longer a hotly contested issue. We move forward,” Gorsuch said.
The House passed legislation that banned abortions in most cases. At the time, Trump’s White House said it “strongly supports” the bill “and applauds the House of Representatives for continuing its efforts to secure critical pro-life protections.”
Trump called on the Senate to approve the House’s 20-week ban bill and vows to sign it if it lands on his desk. (It never did)
A firestorm erupted over Kavanaugh’s nomination. Among the concerns: that he’d be hostile to Roe v. Wade. In his confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh said Roe “has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years” and the most prominent and most important case was Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. Hillary Clinton at the time warned Kavanaugh would one day vote to overturn Roe.
About a week before the 2020 election, Trump had his third conservative Supreme Court justice confirmed to the court.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, with the three justices Trump appointed voting to void it – including Kavanaugh. At the time, Trump told Fox News that “God made the decision,” when asked about how he felt about playing a role in appointing the three conservative justices who made up the majority in the landmark reversal.
“I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody,” Trump said. He added: “This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged.”
In a surprise, the GOP suffered losses in the midterm elections at a time that the party should have swept seats, per tradition of the opposing party in the White House doing well in the midterms. Instead, Democrats held the Senate.
In an NBC News interview, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. blamed those losses on Trump.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.”
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Trump said he would be a voice of consensus on abortion — but didn’t specify how. “Let me just tell you what I’d do,” he said. “I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable.”
After reports surfaced that he told others he was considering a federal abortion ban at 16 weeks, his campaign dismissed it as “fake news.” Soon after, Graham told NBC News that “Trump is warming up to 16 weeks.” And then Trump himself in an interview suggested he’d support a 15-week ban.
At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump said his campaign would be “making a statement next week on abortion” after he was asked if he supported a six-week abortion ban that the Florida Supreme Court just upheld.
Despite his teasing otherwise, Trump did not announce support for a federal abortion ban. Trump on his Truth Social platform released a video saying that the abortion issue is appropriately handled by individual states. He did not say, however, what he would do if he won the presidency and Congress sent him a national ban.
“My view is, now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” Trump said.
Natasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
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