On Monday, Donald Trump gave the Republican Party and its longtime allies in the anti-abortion movement some marching orders. After flirting with support for some version of the national ban that most anti-abortion activists have been supporting practically since the day the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, Trump decided to avoid doing anything to make abortion even more of a presidential campaign issue this year than it already is. So he took the position that for the time being, abortion is strictly an issue for the states to resolve. Don’t complain to me, he seemed to be saying, if you don’t like your state’s abortion laws. Go see your governor or state legislator.
And when at least one major anti-abortion leader, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, and one top political ally, South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham (principal Senate sponsor of a 15-week national abortion ban), complained about Trump’s position, he made it clear why he was doing what he was doing and why they needed to STFU and go along. The rebuke he offered Graham said it all:
It’s ironic that Trump is chastising Graham for being all over the place on abortion policy; Graham has never, so far as I know, been publicly pro-choice the way Trump once was, and Trump has also had happy feet on the subject very recently as he cast about for the most politically defensible position. In addition, Trump knows Graham is going to support his election anyway, as are all the anti-abortion groups, as they made clear, according to Politico:
Alongside Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Students for Life, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the Family Research Council, National Right to Life and CatholicVote, reiterated their commitment Monday morning to electing Trump. The comments represent a shift among some in the anti-abortion movement’s approach during the GOP presidential primary, in which advocates focused on nudging candidates to take more restrictive positions on abortion.
One group let the cat out of the bag: “CatholicVote president Brian Burch said leaving the issue to states was ‘not sufficient,’ but slammed Biden and added that the organization is confident ‘a Trump administration will be staffed with pro-life personnel committed to pro-life policies.’”
This is code for two articles of faith about the future of abortion policy under another Trump presidency. First, there are a ton of actions a president can take to restrict abortions without a congressionally imposed ban, notably by regulatory actions against the medications that have become the most common form of abortion, not to mention the impact of a federal law-enforcement system and appointed judges aligned with states that are trying to stamp out legal abortion. Second, if and when Republican political power in Washington reaches the heights necessary to enact a national abortion ban (which would, among other things, likely require abolition of or a carve-out from the Senate filibuster), Trump’s anti-abortion constituencies believe he’ll abandon the states-rights position and go for the gold.
If that seems cynical on their part or on Trump’s, keep in mind that for nearly 50 years, the anti-abortion movement pretended “returning abortion policy to the states” by reversing Roe was its principal goal. In reality, that was simply a way station to banning abortion wherever and however it became possible, whether it was via 50 state bans, or a federal ban, or a constitutional amendment. All Trump is doing right now is asking anti-abortion activists and Republican pols to go back to lying about their goals for a bit longer until they together have the means to impose a forced-birth regime from sea to shining sea.
You do have to wonder if anti-abortion foot soldiers and leaders alike fear that Trump will ultimately stab them in the back and abandon their cause even if he and they do obtain the power to take the next step toward an America without legal abortion. Anything is possible with this man. But given his and his party’s recent political reliance on conservative Evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics, and his own profound misogyny, it’s much more likely that Trump-style American Greatness means control over reproductive rights will henceforth belong to Daddy. Anything he says in the meantime is probably a lie that he shares with the MAGA base.
