Former President Donald Trump was given plenty of chances at last week’s debate to declare that he’d veto a national abortion ban.
But he refused to do it, time and time again.
That says a lot, since Trump spent the debate lying about a host of issues — including inflation during the Biden administration, that migrants come to the U.S. after fleeing prisons and mental institutions and are “eating the dogs … they’re eating the cats” in Springfield, Ohio.
In an attempt to blunt the atrocious polling for Republicans on abortion, they’ve been feigning moderation on the issue. In Michigan, the state GOP has been dumping dozens of mailers into voters’ mailboxes, like one announcing that “Trump won’t sign a federal abortion ban.”
Trump has now undercut that messaging and his flailing running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who had confidently said the same thing.
On Sunday, Vance embarrassingly admitted in an interview: “I think that I’ve learned my lesson on speaking for the president before he and I have actually talked about an issue.”
But let’s be clear. If Trump wins another term, he wouldn’t even have to sign a bill from Congress; he could take sweeping executive action to eradicate abortion rights. His Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could revoke approval for medication abortion — the most common method in the U.S. He could also revive the 1873 Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills.
Let’s get real. There’s precious little reason to think Trump wouldn’t be on board with a federal abortion ban. As president, he went after Planned Parenthood and nominated scores of anti-abortion judges to lower courts. Back in March, he even endorsed a national 15-week ban that would supersede laws in states like Michigan where abortion is legal.
And he’s bragged, over and over again, about killing constitutional protections for abortion with Roe v. Wade. He just did it again days after his disastrous debate performance against Harris.
“With the long sought termination (52 years!), by everyone, including Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, and virtually all legal scholars and experts, and with the help of six very wise and brave Supreme Court Justices, I was successful in terminating Roe v. Wade – Something which few thought was possible to do!” he wrote on social media.
Three of those six “very wise and brave” justices were appointed by none other than Trump. And of course, terminating Roe v. Wade was something only conservatives had clamored for and it’s been very unpopular — no matter how many times Trump insists otherwise.
What happened after they ruled in June 2022 was sadly predictable. Many states had trigger laws, which meant abortion was instantly illegal once Roe was thrown out. About one-third of American women lost access to abortion.
Now in Michigan, our 1931 law criminalizing abortion was first delayed from going into effect by the courts and later that year by voters, who overwhelmingly chose to protect reproductive rights in the state constitution.
But other state abortion bans stayed on the books. And some states, like Indiana, enacted a near total ban after Roe fell, while Idaho and Tennessee passed laws making it illegal to help minors travel out of state for abortion care.
The next frontier seems to be making it illegal for adults to seek abortion care in other states. And Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term, has intricate plans for a federal surveillance state for women’s fertility and health.
It’s little wonder why Harris has made “Freedom” one of her centerpiece themes this campaign.
While Trump insists that now “people are voting all over the USA” on abortion rights, that’s not true, either. Only five states — Michigan is one — have been able to vote to protect reproductive rights in state law.
In most states where abortion is banned, there’s been no opportunity for voters to have their say with ballot initiatives. Republicans in Arkansas, for instance, successfully kicked a measure off this year’s ballot.
These bans have already had real and terrifying impacts on women and girls. Young teen rape victims have been forced to give birth, something Vance has called “inconvenient,” adding, “The question to me is really about the baby.”
Hadley Duvall, an incest survivor from Kentucky who’s now a reproductive rights advocate, has shared her painful story in Michigan and around the country, including at the Democratic National Convention. Duvall, now 22, has said how grateful she was to have had choices when she was pregnant and that’s something everyone deserves.
“To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” she said.
In anti-abortion states, every miscarriage can be viewed as a potential crime. So women who want to be mothers are suffering, with hospitals refusing to treat those in crisis, resulting in one patient miscarrying in a hospital lobby bathroom.
Amanda Zurawski had premature prelabor rupture of the membranes at 18 weeks of pregnancy and was initially denied an abortion in Texas, since her fetus had cardiac activity — until she went into sepsis. She ended up in the intensive care unit with septic shock. She also spoke about her trauma at the DNC with her husband by her side.
“Every time I share our story, my heart breaks for the baby girl we wanted so desperately, for the doctors and nurses who couldn’t help me deliver safely, for Josh, who feared he’d lose me, too,” she said.
Some women can’t share their stories, like Amber Nicole Thurman, a healthy Georgia mother of a 6-year-old who was denied a dilation and curettage (D&C) needed to remove remaining fetal tissue from her body. But in her state, performing what has been a routine procedure could land doctors in prison for a decade.
So Thurman waited in a hospital bed as her organs started to fail for 20 hours until doctors operated, ProPublica reports. Thurman died, leaving her son without a mother.
America is still the world’s leader in scientific innovation. But being denied life-saving medical care is the reality for too many women here after Roe’s reversal.
As Amanda Zurawski said, “What I went through was nothing short of barbaric, and it did not need to happen. It was completely avoidable. It was preventable.”
As heinous as these stories are, it can get even worse for women — in both red states and blue — under a national abortion ban. No one can say they weren’t warned.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: [email protected]. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.
