Donald Trump smiles before a crowd in Detroit on Monday.” data-template=”https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3527×2351+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F18%2F96%2F5fb18ef9445fb0dfd94cd0602fb8%2Fgettyimages-2167843442.jpg” data-format=”jpeg”>
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump smiles before a crowd in Detroit on Monday.
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Emily Elconin/Getty Images North America
Anti-abortion rights activists are expressing concern over recent comments by former President Donald Trump, in which he appears to be trying to soften his position on abortion.
In A Friday post on Truth SocialTrump — whose Supreme Court appointments helped overturn a constitutional right to abortion — said: “My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”
That statement followed an interview with KeynoteUSA Earlier this week, Trump indicated he would not use a 19th-century anti-obscenity law to restrict abortion pills, as some activists have suggested.
Trump told KeynoteUSA that “generally speaking, I would not” use the Comstock Act of 1873 to restrict access to the drug.
“It will be available and it is available now,” Trump said.
A political calculation
Trump’s comments came shortly after last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where abortion rights were a major topic, and as Republicans fear the issue could hurt them at the polls in November. Since the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case in 2022, voters have repeatedly signaled their support for abortion access.
Trump has stressed that he believes abortion regulation should be left to the states, but his latest comments have sparked pushback from some abortion rights opponents who make up a key part of the Republican base.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, called out Trump’s comments “relative to.” In A statement In an interview with National Review, Pence said: “The former president’s use of leftist language, promising that his administration would be ‘great for women and their reproductive rights,’ should be troubling to millions of pro-life Americans.”
Earlier this year, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, expressed disappointment with Trump’s stance of leaving abortion in the hands of the states. In a post on X this weekend, Dannenfelser reacted Responding to Trump’s recent comments, he said: “The cause is much bigger and younger than Donald Trump. It will shape the Republican Party beyond this Trump moment.”
But abortion rights opponents continue to support the Republican candidate.
Dannenfelser said he sees the potential election of Vice President Harris and other Democrats as the “most urgent threat” to his cause in the near term.
And in a Statement on XKristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America expressed a similar sentiment, calling Trump “wrong on abortion,” but adding, “I will vote for him in November with hope, as I have no hope for Kamala Harris…”
Abortion pills and federal law
In an interview with NPR, Hawkins, whose group has pushed to use Comstock to restrict abortion, also expressed disappointment with Trump’s recent comments about the 1873 federal law.
“I think it’s the wrong tone to say that some laws like the Comstock law won’t be enforced,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins says she hopes that if Trump is elected, he will choose Cabinet members and other federal officials who would be open to using Comstock and the federal regulatory system to restrict abortion.
The Comstock Law prohibits the sending of materials considered “obscene” and specifically mentions items used to induce abortion. But the law has not been enforced for decades, according to legal experts.
And Trump, speaking to KeynoteUSA, indicated he has no plans to change that.
“(Abortion) should not be in the halls of the federal government; it should be in the state governments,” Trump said in the KeynoteUSA interview. “I was able to bring it back to the state governments and now people are voting.”
In a statement, Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, suggested that Trump’s recent comments on abortion indicate Republicans are concerned the issue could be a liability heading into November.
Lawson said Trump is largely responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade because of his selection of conservative judges.
The statement also noted that Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, signed a letter Last year, she publicly called on federal officials to use the Comstock Act to restrict abortion pills.
Vance is now aligning himself with Trump. Speaking to KeynoteUSA In recent days, Vance said Trump would veto a national abortion ban.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are hitting the panic button and trying to rewrite history when it comes to their record on banning abortion and restricting reproductive freedom,” Lawson said.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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