Trump Says He’ll Vote Against Florida’s Abortion Rights Measure After Conservative Backlash

 

Trump Says He’ll Vote Against Florida’s Abortion Rights Measure After Conservative Backlash

 

A day earlier, the former president had suggested he might support the measure, which would expand abortion access in the state.

 

Tim Balk

By Tim Balk

Aug. 30, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/us/politics/trump-florida-abortion-measure.html

 

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he would vote against a ballot measure in Florida that would expand abortion access in the state, clarifying his stance after having suggested a day earlier that he might support the measure.

 

“I’ll be voting no,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, even as he said he disagreed with his home state’s current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

 

Passage of the ballot measure, called Amendment 4, would allow patients to seek an abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

 

In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Mr. Trump, who had long avoided taking a firm position on the measure, said he was “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.” His campaign promptly sought to clean up those remarks, saying in a statement that they were not indicative of how he would vote in November.

 

His comments were also met with backlash from social conservatives and abortion opponents. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group, said Mr. Trump would be undermining a long-held opposition to abortions after five months of pregnancy if he voted for the measure.

 

“We strongly support Florida’s current heartbeat law,” Ms. Dannenfelser said in a statement, adding that she had also spoken privately with the former president. “For anyone who believes in drawing a different line, they still must vote against Amendment 4, unless they don’t want a line at all.”

 

Mr. Trump’s evolution reflects the political challenge the issue of abortion poses for the former president, who appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional protections for abortion rights and paving the way for Republican-led states to curtail sharply or outright ban the procedure.

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who lost to Mr. Trump in the Republican primary for president, signed the six-week ban, one of the most restrictive in the country, into law last year. Mr. Trump criticized the measure as a “terrible mistake.”

 

Democrats are hopeful that continuing backlash to the Supreme Court ruling will help them in November. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement on Friday that Mr. Trump had made his position on abortion “very clear,” noting that many women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks.

 

“I trust women to make their own health care decisions and believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor,” Ms. Harris said in the statement.

 

Mr. Trump has said he has “no regrets” about his role in the reversal of Roe, but he has also embarked upon an election-season effort to present himself as supportive of abortion protections and reproductive rights.

 

Last week, Mr. Trump claimed on social media that his administration would be “great” for women’s “reproductive rights.” And on Thursday, he said he would require insurance companies or the federal government to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization treatments if he won in November.

 

Mr. Trump’s announcement regarding I.V.F. coverage contained few specifics about the proposal or how he might address its cost.

 

Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.