Donald Trump: U.S. Abortion Laws Shouldn’t Be Changed
Did Donald Trump just flip-flop his stance on U.S. abortion laws again? Just days after The Donald said during an interview that women who seek out abortions “should be punished” if abortion laws in the U.S. become more restrictive. He then changed his tune in response to massive public outcry, declaring that providers of abortions should be punished, not the women seeking them. Now, Donald Trump has reportedly said that U.S. abortion laws should be left alone.
In an interview with John Dickerson of CBS‘ Face the Nation, set to air on Sunday, NBC News reports that Donald Trump had some decidedly un-Conservative words about abortion in the United States.
“At this moment the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way.”
Donald Trump reportedly went on to say that U.S. abortion laws “are set now on abortion and that’s the way they’re going to remain until they’re changed.”
“Mr. Trump gave an accurate account of the law as it is today and made clear it must stay that way now —until he is President. Then he will change the law through his judicial appointments and allow the states to protect the unborn. There is nothing new or different here.”
This isn’t the first time that Trump has changed or appeared to change his fundamental views regarding abortion. Back in the 1990s, well before the former reality TV star decided to run for POTUS, he was publicly pro-choice. After launching his bid for the White House, Donald Trump told the world he was now pro-life, an abortion stance much more in line with the political views of the GOP voter base.
In January, Donald Trump told Bloomberg that he believed abortions in the U.S. should be banned, a much different legal opinion than the one he reportedly gave in this most recent interview.
The next president of the U.S. could very well be filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court as one of their first orders of business. Currently, the SCOTUS is one justice shy of a full bench, following the death of Antonin Scalia and cemented by a Republican refusal to consider any nominee put forth by President Obama to fill the vacancy. Donald Trump “hedged” when questioned about the possibility of using abortion as a litmus test (should he be elected) for any potential new justice. When asked about it during a press conference on March 21, The Donald reportedly said “we’re gonna look at that. We’re gonna look — it’s gonna be pro-life.”
Donald Trump, public pro-choicer-turned pro-life, was questioned about his statement about punishing women who seek out abortions, which was made, then retracted, earlier this week. He reportedly suggested to CBS that his publicly criticized (albeit seemingly temporary) stance on punishing women who abort was based on an “older school of thought.”
“A question was asked to me. And it was asked in a very hypothetical. And it was said, ‘illegal, illegal. I’ve been told by some people that was an older line answer and that was an answer that was given on a, you know, basis of an older line from years ago on a very conservative basis.”
The newest Donald Trump abortion debacle comes on the heels of what the L.A. Times is calling “one of the worst weeks of his campaign.” In addition to the controversy surrounding his ever-changing opinion on abortion, Donald Trump also faced a very public berating from conservative talk radio hosts, the arrest of his campaign manager for battery, and much more dismal poll numbers in the crucial state of Wisconsin than his campaign expected to see. At this point, it remains to be seen if the current state of Donald Trump’s campaign is a temporary blip or could be the beginning of the end, and more than a tiny bit related to the candidate’s inconsistent statements regarding his views on U.S. abortion laws.
[Image Courtesy Of Darren Hauck/Getty Images]
