Donald Trump has openly declared abortion a political liability for the GOP — and some anti-abortion advocates fear his latest stance has given allied Republicans the green light to move left, potentially endangering their hard-fought gains at the state level.
The former president kicked off last week with a video announcement on abortion: It should be left to the states, he said, while touting his role in overturning Roe and giving them that authority. “The only issue [Democrats] think they have is on abortion, and now all I say is the states are handling it and it’s totally killed that issue,” he added later.
That was bad enough for advocates who’d been lobbying him to support a federal ban, but — perhaps more concerning to them — Trump went on to urge Arizona “to remedy” its Supreme Court ruling that deemed an 1864-near total abortion ban remained in effect, and predicted that Florida would “probably” change its six-week restriction.
In effect, Trump’s statements gave MAGA voters and politicians a permission slip to break with anti-abortion groups. Within days, two of his most prominent allied politicians in each state began doing just that. Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake backed Trump’s opposition to a federal law, and said the Arizona ruling was “out of line with where the people of this state are,” a reversal of her previous support for the state law. Especially galling to social conservatives, Lake declared in a video — without getting specific — that she wanted to offer pregnant women “more choices,” the type of language typically associated with abortion rights supporters.
On Monday, Sen. Rick Scott weighed in on Florida’s current six-week restriction signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying that he’d support a less-restrictive 15-week statewide ban in the name of “consensus.” Trump has previously touted Scott, who is up for re-election, as a potential Senate majority leader.
For many advocates, Trump’s criticism of abortion bans was a step too far, even as they stressed they still supported Trump over President Biden.
“No one would believe me if I said I wasn’t concerned. I’m clearly concerned and it’s definitely a gut check moment for people who have been pro-life for a very long time,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Semafor. “I mean, no one could argue that Republicans who switched positions is a move in the right direction — and there’s multiple senators who have done that.”
A national ban would have been a heavy lift already and it’s still unlikely GOP legislatures begin rolling back restrictions anytime soon. But both Arizona and Florida face ballot initiatives this November that could guarantee abortion access as a right, potentially wiping out post-Roe restrictions in two of the largest battleground states in the nation. Deep red states have already voted in favor of abortion access when offered the chance before; Republicans wavering on their state bans could be a powerful signal to rank-and-file voters.
Looking longer term, Dannenfelser asked “whether the Republican Party can be sustained without the support of a reasonable pro-life position and the movement that goes along with that.” If they choose to walk away from the movement, “there’s a major realignment ahead.”
To some religious conservatives, it’s an I-told-you-so moment. Trump’s rise was initially greeted with skepticism in the evangelical community in his first run, including by certain leaders who warned that tying their cause to a recent abortion rights supporter with a salacious personal life would eventually come back to bite the movement.
“My long-term fear was that the moral credibility of the pro-life movement and other movements being tied to this person would be a mistake,” Dr. Russell Moore, a prominent Trump critic and editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, told Semafor.
The core anti-abortion believers will continue to make their case, of course. But “the permission structure that’s now built will continue to move in that direction,” Moore said, as Trump’s takeover of the party slowly pushes politicians away from the GOP’s longtime devotion to the cause.
“My gut is that the nation is moving toward two pro-choice parties,” he said.
