Abortion: a troubling issue for Trump's Republicans

"Donald Trump has an abortion problem," said Eric Levitz on Vox. He's ahead of Joe Biden on most election issues, but trailing badly on this one. It's an awkward subject for him. It was his judicial appointments that enabled the overturning two years ago of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling that introduced a constitutional right to abortion. The fulfilment of a decades-long Republican goal, this was perhaps the most significant achievement of his presidency. 

But voters haven't responded well to "the avalanche of abortion bans" that have followed Roe's demise, making the issue a growing liability for Trump and his party. Last week, he sought to neutralise the matter with a neat bit of triangulation. In a statement, he voiced his objection to late abortions, and his belief that rape victims should always be able to get the procedure, but said it should be left to each state to decide its own policies.

This was smart positioning, said Marc A. Thiessen in The Washington Post. No president has delivered the "pro-life movement" more victories than Trump. Some are upset that he has chosen not to back a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks, but he's just being "honest": a national ban would never have got through congress. Trump's move defuses the issue; individual states, America's "laboratories of democracy", have always been the appropriate place to decide this question. It also allows Republicans to go on the offensive, pointing out that Democrats, who object to any limits, are the real "abortion extremists".

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But the ripple effects from Roe's demise are going to cause plenty more problems for the Republicans, said Jim Newell on Slate. The day after Trump's statement, the Arizona supreme court ruled that an 1864 law banning almost all abortions could come back into effect. Trump rushed to distance himself from the decision, insisting that the situation would somehow be "straightened out". Among those now trying to repeal the 1864 ban is the Republican US senate candidate Kari Lake, who back in 2022 called it a "great law". 

For 50 years, GOP politicians have been able to get away with "mouthing off" about abortion to pro-life supporters, safe in the knowledge that Roe would prevent any of their plans coming into effect. Now that Roe is gone, the political bill is coming due as red states bring in those illiberal measures. And the reminders "will come again, again, and again".