Trump indicates he would support a 15-week federal abortion ban
Former President Donald J. Trump indicated this week that he would likely support a federal ban on 15-week abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest and life-threatening emergencies.
Mr. Trump’s comments Tuesday on the WABC radio program “Sid & Friends in the Morning” echo earlier reports that he had privately expressed support for a 16-week ban. But saying this publicly ties him concretely to a position that has been toxic to many Republicans.
“People are now agreeing on the number of weeks of 15, and I think in terms of that, and it will work out to something that is very reasonable,” he said. “But people really agree, even the hardliners agree, it seems like 15 weeks is a number that people agree on. But I will make that announcement at the right time.”
At the same time, he said he believed abortion should be a state issue, adding that anti-abortion activists who wanted a ban earlier in pregnancy should understand that “you have to win elections.”
But while Mr. Trump used 15 weeks as a compromise, such bans are generally unpopular, based on both surveys and election results.
A KFF poll released this month found that 58 percent of Americans opposed a 16-week ban. Last year, Republicans in Virginia campaigned on the 15-week threshold — describing it, as Mr. Trump does, as a reasonable middle ground. They lost control of the state House of Representatives.
Voters have also consistently opposed abortion restrictions in states that put a referendum or constitutional amendment on the ballot, even as anti-abortion activists tried to focus the campaign on abortions later in pregnancy.
A 15-week ban would be less strict than the six-week or total bans that many Republican-led states have adopted, but it would be significantly more restrictive than the status quo that endured for nearly fifty years before the Supreme Court struck Roe v. Wade in 2022. Roe protected abortion rights until it was viable, after being amended in 1992 by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Viability refers to the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb – which is usually around 23 weeks, although this varies from pregnancy to pregnancy.
Mr. Trump has bragged about appointing three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But until Tuesday, he had done his best to avoid saying what he would do if re-elected, even as his allies publicly expressed hope that he would take executive action to effectively ban abortion without legislation.
President Biden’s campaign quickly responded to Trump’s interview with a statement from Amanda Zurawski, who was initially denied an abortion in Texas despite life-threatening complications and is one of several women suing over Texas’ abortion ban.
“My family has been forever changed by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe,” Ms. Zurawski said, adding: “Trump does not ‘signal’, he does not ‘suggest’, he does not ‘tend to’ what whatever – he actively plans to ban abortion nationwide if elected, causing the same brutality and chaos I witnessed across the country.”