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Former first lady Melania Trump reportedly offers vocal support for abortion rights in her “deeply personal” new memoir, despite Donald Trump’s instrumental role in rolling back abortion protections.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” Melania Trump writes in the forthcoming Melania, according to a review copy obtained by The Guardian. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life,” she reportedly writes elsewhere.
In the book, Melania reportedly argues that there are “numerous reasons” beyond fundamental rights why a woman might want an abortion, including a dangerous pregnancy or one tied to rape or incest.
Melania Trump’s memoir, which former president Trump said last month he hadn’t read yet, comes out next week.
The reported comments come as the Trump presidential campaign’s abortion stances are back in the national spotlight after vice presidential pick JD Vance made false claims regarding his past support for a national abortion ban.
During the debate, Vance falsely claimed that he “never supported a national abortion ban” but instead supported “some minimum national standard.”
However, during a 2022 podcast recording, the US senator for Ohio said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”
Donald Trump has said he would veto a national abortion ban, leaving policy on the subject to the states.
Conservative Supreme Court justices Trump appointed while in office were the key force behind the high court overturning the constitutional protections for abortion rights in 2022.
“Today’s decision, which is the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation,” Trump, by then out of the White House, said at the time, saying the ruling took place “because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court”.
The Supreme Court decision led to a wave of new abortion bans across the country. The procedure is now banned with few exceptions in 14 states and severely restricted in others.
Since then, pregnant women across the country have faced life-threatening medical complications under the new healthcare regime.
The Harris campaign has referred multiple times to the story of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old from Georgia who died amid complications from an abortion as doctors waited 20 before operating, a death her family blames on Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, which was passed in 2022.
