former president donald Trump said one exact thing about abortion during his CNN presidential address Thursday night. Discussion: He is responsible for the overthrow Rowe vs Wade. “I put three Supreme Court justices on the court, and they just happened to vote for murder,” Trump said. Roe vs. Wade And then move it back to the United States.”
This isn’t the first time President Trump has boasted about stripping Americans of their constitutional right to abortion. As I’ve written before, he has He boasted of having appointed three of the five judges on the Supreme Court.roe.
But otherwise, Trump has consistently lied about the reality of abortion. During the first debate in the United States, for example, Trump claimed that “all the lawyers” wanted to Roe v. Wade It’s overturned. “Yes, it’s a lie,” Melissa Murray, a reproductive rights scholar and NYU law professor, said when I asked her for her opinion. In fact, several legal scholars have pointed out that it’s overturned. roe Undermining the legitimacy of the court due to blatant disregard for precedent; decidedAs the conservative judges showed in their ruling: Doves Decision. Legal scholars have also submitted several. friend In the briefingDovesCase urging the court not to overturnroe.
Can Women Be Lawyers? Ask Brett Kavanaugh.
But if that’s a possibility, that’s a lie. https://t.co/DPoD0ww7Hs
— Melissa Murray (@ProfMMurray on Threads
) (@ProfMMurray) June 28, 2024
Trump too Falsely claimed that the Supreme Court “only approved abortion pills,” citing a recent incident. FDA vs. Hippocratic AllianceRaised by anti-abortion extremists It sought to roll back some of the FDA’s rule changes that had made mifepristone (the first of two pills used in medical abortions) more readily available. In fact, as my colleague Nina Martin wrote, the court did not “approve” the pill, instead ruling that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue. This is because it is based on several hypothetical facts.
Alliance (Defending Freedom, a right-wing religious law firm) said patientsI think I willYou may be one of the rare people for whom the abortion pill did not work as intended.~I thinkThen seek emergency treatment at a hospital.~I thinkmeet the providerI think I willbelongs to one of the anti-abortion groups in the lawsuit;I think I willYou may find yourself in a position where you need emergency surgery to remove the fetus.
The reason this issue is important is because in the future, other plaintiffs may raise objections to mifepristone and file the lawsuit again in the Supreme Court. As some reproductive scholars have written, the conservative justices appear to have indicated that they are willing to hear other challenges to mifepristone in the future.
Another potential problem with the pill can be found in the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law that “prohibited the mailing of any article or object designed, modified or intended to produce an abortion or for any obscene or immoral use.” “Trump associates attending Project 2025, Trump’s second term implementation plan. Led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, it explicitly stated that the conservative Justice Department should enforce the law to criminalize “suppliers and distributors of (abortion) drugs.”
erase did He said he agreed with the High Court’s decision in the mifepristone case tonight, adding: “I’m not going to block it.” But given the role Trump has already played in destroying access to abortion across the country, it is much more prudent to look carefully at what he is doing. do Not about abortion, but about what he said. Called. Abortion rights advocates agree. When she asked Elisa Wells, co-director and co-founder of Plan C, a campaign focused on access to drug abortions, whether she believed Trump’s pledge not to block mifepristone if re-elected, she responded: “Any subject.”
Another example is Trump’s claim that he supports “exceptions for rape, incest, and maternal life.” It’s great. However, reports show that so-called exceptions do not exist in real life. Moreover, many of his supporters want him to go further with the ban. every Abortion. Jonathan Mitchell, a conservative lawyer who led the Texas abortion ban movement, said:The New York TimesIn February, he said, “As long as Comstock is on our books, there is no need for a federal ban.”
Perhaps most egregiously and outrageously, Trump claimed: The Democratic Party said, “It will take the life of a child at 8 months, 9 months, or even after birth.” Let’s analyze it. First, federal data shows that more than 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester. Studies show that third-trimester abortions are extremely rare (only 1% of all abortions) and typically occur only when there is a serious medical problem related to the health of the mother or fetus or, as KFF puts it, “impediments to treatment.” . “It causes delays in abortion procedures.” And as for his claims that Democrats or doctors killed newborns, the procedure has already been made illegal at the federal level.
So Trump spewed a bunch of lies about abortion tonight. But as I wrote, the fact that he was responsible for the overthrow roe—Child victims of rape or incest Whether women are forced to give birth or travel across state lines to get an abortion, or face life-threatening pregnancy complications because they can’t get an abortion, these are simple facts that have nothing to do with politics.
