Trump’s abortion conundrum
In recent years, Donald Trump has sold NFTs, sneakers, and bibles. Now the perennial marketer is busy selling a new and improved version of himself to voters. Meet Don 2.0: a reasonable man with moderate views on abortion.
Hang on a second, you might say. Trump? The guy who, in 2016, said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions? The guy who can’t stop bragging about how he is responsible for overturning Roe v Wade because he filled the supreme court with conservative justices? The guy who, just a few weeks ago, was pondering a 15-week national abortion ban? That guy has now moderated his views on abortion?
Yes, I know, it’s tough to believe but, stay with me here, Trump has turned over a new leaf! On Wednesday the former president suggested that everyone should ignore all the extreme things he’s said about abortion in the past–not to mention his track record on reproductive rights–and, instead, trust that he would never implement a federal ban on abortion. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump said that, if elected president again, he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban even if it passed Congress.
So should we take his word for this or – and I know this is something of a shocking suggestion – is a man who has been charged with 88 criminal offenses in four criminal cases just spouting lies to make himself more electable? It’s honestly very difficult to say.
It’s certainly politically expedient for Trump to tone down his rhetoric on abortion and repeat the talking point that he’s not going to do anything, it’s all for individual states to decide. Reproductive rights are at the centre of the Biden administration’s re-election efforts and the Democrats have just launched a new multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that makes it clear that Trump is responsible for overturning Roe v Wade. “Donald Trump did this,” proclaims the end of one ad, which features a Texas woman who faced life-threatening conditions after miscarrying and being denied a medically necessary abortion.
Trump is also facing pressure to look more moderate following backlash from extremist policies his presidency helped to enable. In February, for example, an Alabama supreme court ruling declared that IVF embryos are ‘extrauterine children,’ effectively shutting down IVF treatment in the state. The fallout from this prompted Trump to say he would “strongly support the availability of IVF” and call on Alabama to protect the fertility treatment. (In March Alabama passed a law protecting IVF providers from liability.)
This week, Arizona also made headlines with a scene that looked like it was straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale. On Monday a far-right Arizona state senator led a prayer circle in the state senate where worshippers spoke in tongues and prayed for an abortion ban from 1864 to become law again. (Do watch the video, it’s bonkers.) Their prayers were answered the next day as the Arizona supreme court ruled the 1864 law could go into effect, banning almost all abortions without any exceptions for rape or incest.
What happened in Arizona was so extreme that Trump basically had no choice but to distance himself from it. “Yeah, they did [go too far],” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. He then vaguely promised that the ruling would get “straightened out” and reiterated his talking point that abortion rights should be left to state governments.
With the election drawing closer, Trump finds himself walking a tricky tightrope when it comes to reproductive rights. On the one hand, he has to appeal to his evangelical base who want him to push for a national abortion ban. On the other hand, he can’t risk looking too extreme and alienating more moderate conservatives. His solution to this conundrum? Do what he does best: disorient everyone by spouting a bunch of contradictory nonsense.
By now it should be clear that nothing Trump says can be trusted. And yet, as Margaret Sullivan pointed out in her Guardian column this week, large swathes of the media are reporting Trump’s “new and improved” stance on abortion as if it’s fact, rather than opportunistic politicking. “Too many in the mainstream media swallowed [Trump’s more moderate stance on abortion] whole, at least in all-important headlines, presenting Trump’s position not only as news but as a politically savvy move toward the center,” Sullivan wrote.
Trump’s recent comments on abortion are certainly politically savvy, but don’t be fooled: he’s not moving even an inch towards the centre. Trump has shown us time and time again who he is. Anyone who thinks he wouldn’t restrict abortion rights even further if he became president hasn’t been paying attention.
A new study explains why lesbians report more orgasms than straight women
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Newborns are dying preventable deaths in Gaza’s primary maternity hospital
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What has 20 years of banning headscarves done for France?
Nothing positive, says Rokhaya Diallo in the Guardian. What was sold as a defense of secularism “has opened the floodgates of intolerance and become a tool for exclusion”.
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Ten years on, what happened to the 276 Nigerian girls snatched from their school?
A decade ago almost 300 schoolgirls were abducted from a school in Chibok, Nigeria, by the Islamic militant group Boko Haram. About 100 of those abductees (now women) are still missing. The Guardian revisits the abduction and looks at the “suspicion and stigma” that surrounds the women were recovered.
The week in paintriarchy
Unless you’re immensely talented, extremely lucky, or Joe Biden’s son then it can be difficult to break into the art scene. So I have a lot of sympathy for a 51-year-old frustrated artist working in a museum in Germany who decided to hang his own painting on the museum walls in the hopes of getting his break. Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne has said it won’t comment on the painting’s style or subject because it doesn’t want to encourage copycats. “All I can say is that we did not receive any positive feedback on the addition from visitors to the gallery,” a spokesperson said. Ouch.
