WOMEN PUNISHED: Why Trump is so DANGEROUS when it comes to abortion
If Donald Trump obtains a second term, attacks on abortion access can be expected to balloon. He routinely brags about his role in destroying protections for this kind of health care, and now he’s admitting that there would be punishment for women who obtain or attempt to obtain an abortion.
Trump has said something similar before, although he’s backed off on some of his pre-presidency promises. In 2016, he stated that there must be a punishment for a woman who seeks abortion care.
Now, he’s been asked a series of questions about abortion in his latest interview, and even as he dodged some questions, the answers he was willing to give on the record are alarming. In a Time interview, Trump was asked if he’s comfortable with women being prosecuted for abortions, and responded:
“I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
His responses indicated that in a second term, it wouldn’t only be women who seek an abortion who would face infringement on privacy rights. Every woman who becomes pregnant, or can become pregnant, could be subjected to invasive monitoring.
Trump was asked if it would be appropriate for states to monitor women’s pregnancies, in order to keep an eye out for those who might attempt an abortion in private. He said:
“I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.”
Then he pivoted to boasting about the “courage” of the justices who overturned the Roe precedent.
He would not say how he will vote in his home state, Florida, when the right to abortion is on the ballot in November, but did say that the 6-week ban the state currently has is too severe.
He also promised an official position on the abortion pill, mifepristone, in the next week, and on the legality of mailing medications for home abortions within the next 14 days.
You may recall that the last time Trump released a promised statement on abortion, he tried so hard to straddle the fence that he ended up upsetting anti-choicers, without actually soothing the worries of those in favor of bodily autonomy.
This interview, too, will likely upset some of his base, since Trump refused to say whether he’d sign a national abortion ban if it made it to his desk. Instead, he kept insisting that it doesn’t matter because it will never happen — a promise that may sound like deja vu to those who heard his Supreme Court picks say that overturning Roe wouldn’t come up.
Below, watch Trump’s 2016 declaration that women must be punished for seeking a basic medical need.
Reminder: In March 2016, Trump unequivocally called for women who get abortions to be punished
TRUMP: "The answer is there has to be some form of punishment"
MATTHEWS: "For the woman?"
T: "Yeah. There has to be some form"
M: "Imprisonment?"
T: "It will have to be determined" pic.twitter.com/Djkcz2aCCT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2019
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