Donald Trump addresses Christian group that wants abortion completely 'eradicated' – USA TODAY
Former President Donald Trump virtually addressed an evangelical group that has called abortion “the greatest atrocity facing our generation” as Republicans have struggled to unify around a stance on abortion restrictions in 2024.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee sent a pre-recorded video for the Danbury Institute’s Life and Liberty Forum in Indianapolis Monday. An association of churches, Christian Americans and organizations, the Danbury Institute has called for a total end to abortion, which they compare to “child sacrifice.”
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“We will not rest until it is eradicated entirely,” the group says on their website.
Trump on Monday kept his message broad, thanking those in attendance for their “tremendous devotion to God and to country” and making no explicit reference to abortion.
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“Now is the time for us all to pull together and stand up for our values and our freedoms,” Trump said in his video. “… We have to defend religious liberty, free speech, innocent life, and the heritage and tradition that built America into the greatest nation in the history of the world.”
President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler, another speaker at the event, criticized abortion access in states across the country. He also took aim at other reproductive issues, including in vitro fertilization.
Mohler cited Alabama lawmakers, who, after the state Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos are legally protected as children, quickly passed protections for in vitro fertilization providers and patients.
“If we believe in the sanctity and dignity of every single human life from the point of fertilization, we need to recognize that any intervention with an embryo … is an assault upon human dignity,” Mohler said.
Trump has long touted his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, after he appointed three pivotal conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the former president has also tried to dodge a hardline stance on the procedure, saying in April he thinks the issue of abortion restrictions should be left to each individual state, avoiding talk of a national ban. Trump’s position stands in stark contrast from the group hosting Monday’s event.
A Gallup poll conducted in May 2023 found that 47% of U.S. adults believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances or legal in most circumstances. Thirty-six percent of Americans said they believe the procedure should be legal in only a few circumstances, and 13% said it should be completely illegal.
Trump has previously warned fellow Republicans about the political dangers of anti-abortion stances. Abortion rights activists have notched victories in states across the country with ballot measures and other local pushes on reproductive rights since Roe was overturned.
Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, responded to Trump’s remarks at the forum, saying “If you want to know who Trump will fight for in a second term, look at who he’s spending his time speaking to: anti-abortion extremists who call abortion ‘child sacrifice’ and want to ‘eradicate’ abortion ‘entirely.’”