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Donald Trump Probably Just Disappointed A Lot Of Conservatives On Abortion

The GOP front-runner won't say whether he'd push to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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By 

Co-creator and executive producer, 'Embeds'

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WATERVILLE VALLEY, N.H. -- Republican front-runner Donald Trump refused to say whether he supports overturning the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, raising new questions about his commitment to opposing abortion rights.

At a campaign rally here on Tuesday night, a man in the audience cited the infamous Kermit Gosnell case to question Trump about his abortion views. 

“You can see how when a bill is enacted as the Roe v. Wade thing, all of these things tend to decay, decay, decay and just devolve in this butchering we see now,” the man said. “Will you try to --"

“Defund,” Trump said, referring to his position in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood.

The man in the crowd, however, wasn’t satisfied with Trump’s initial attempt to deflect the question. 

“Defund that, and repeal Roe v. Wade?” he asked the candidate.

“Well, the answer is yes, defund,” Trump said. “The other, you need a lot of Supreme Court justices. But we’re gonna be looking at that also very, very carefully. But you need a lot of Supreme Court judges. But defund, yes, we’re going to be doing that.” 

Trump’s ambiguous comments on abortion stand in stark contrast to the hard-line declarations from the three GOP contenders who have been polling closest to Trump in recent national surveys -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 

During an appearance on “Meet the Press” in October, Carson said that he would “love” to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

Rubio has said that he does not support abortion rights, even in cases of rape or incest, and Cruz recently lauded an endorsement he'd received from Troy Newman, who has called for the execution of doctors who provide abortions.

Trump’s own position on abortion has shifted dramatically over the years, even as it remains nebulous to this day.

During his early decades in public life, Trump supported abortion rights, writing in his 2000 book The America We Deserve about his own “pro-choice instincts.”

“I support a woman’s right to choose, for example, but I am uncomfortable with the procedures,” Trump wrote.

Then, as he flirted with a Republican presidential run in advance of the 2012 election, Trump changed his position, characterizing himself as “pro-life” at the 2011 CPAC conference.

But last summer, Trump said that his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry -- a federal appellate judge whom abortion rights opponents regard unfavorably -- would be a "phenomenal" Supreme Court justice.  

The GOP front-runner’s refusal on Tuesday to say whether he would take steps toward overturning Roe v. Wade drew a rebuke from the campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

“That is the answer a pro-choice politician who is pretending to be pro-life gives,” Bush’s communications director, Tim Miller, told The Huffington Post. “Jeb has a consistent, proven commitment to promoting legislation that would advance the pro-life cause and appointing reliably conservative justices.” 

Watch the video above to see Trump’s full remarks on whether he supports overturning Roe v. Wade.

 

Also on HuffPost:

Myths About Abortion That Need To Be Busted
MYTH: Abortion is dangerous.(01 of08)
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REALITY: Over 99.75 percent of abortions do not cause major medical problems.Less than one-quarter of 1 percent of abortions performed in the United States lead to major health complications, according to a 2014 study from the University of California, San Francisco, that tracked 55,000 women for six weeks after their abortions. The researchers note that this makes an abortion statistically about as risky as a colonoscopy.If that fact seems surprising, consider how American pop culture misrepresents the risks of abortion: Nine percent of film and television characters who have abortions die as a direct result of the procedure, according to another 2014 study from UCSF. (credit:Getty Images)
2. MYTH: Medical abortions -- those performed using pills -- are still fringe.(02 of08)
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REALITY: About one in five abortions are medical abortions.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 19 percent of abortions in 2011 were medical abortions and that 28.5 percent of those took place in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The Guttmacher Institute also found that medical abortions increased substantially from 2008 to 2011, meaning more women have ended their pregnancies with this alternative to surgery.

3. MYTH: Women who get abortions will regret it, and are more likely to suffer mental health issues.(03 of08)
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REALITY: Most women will not regret their decision, and are no more likely to experience mental health problems than women who carry an unplanned pregnancy to term.While many women experience mixed emotions after an abortion, 95 percent of women who have abortions ultimately feel they have made the right decision, according to an August 2013 study from UCSF. "Experiencing negative emotions postabortion is different from believing that abortion was not the right decision," the researchers explained. Furthermore, while unplanned pregnancies often cause emotional stress, there is no evidence to suggest that women who choose to terminate their pregnancies will be more likely to suffer from mental health issues, according to a 2008 report from the American Psychological Association that investigated all relevant medical studies published since 1989.The APA found that past studies claiming abortion causes depression and other mental health problems consistently failed to account for other risk factors, particularly a woman's medical history. The APA accounted for these factors and found that, among women who have an unplanned pregnancy, those who have abortions are no more likely to experience mental health problems than those who carry the pregnancy to term.
4. MYTH: Fetuses experience pain during abortions.(04 of08)
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REALITY: Fetuses cannot feel pain until at least the 24th week of pregnancy. Experts ranging from Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree with that timeline. In fact, research from UCSF found that fetuses can't perceive pain before 29 or 30 weeks of development.Then why have so many states banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy? Perhaps misrepresentation of research is partly to blame: Many of the researchers most frequently cited by pro-life politicians told The New York Times that their research does not prove anything about fetal pain.
5. MYTH: The majority of Americans don't think abortion should be legal.(05 of08)
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REALITY: Most Americans support a woman's right to choose.According to a Gallup poll from 2014, 78 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. (Fifty percent said "some circumstances," while 28 percent said all.) What's more, in 2012, Gallup found that 61 percent of Americans think abortions that take place during the first trimester of pregnancy should be legal. (Nine out of 10 abortions in the U.S. do take place during that time period, according to Guttmacher.) (credit:Getty )
7. MYTH: Most American women have easy access to abortions.(06 of08)
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REALITY: Women face a growing number of barriers to accessing abortions.More than 57 percent of American women live in states that are hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That represents a marked increase from 2000, when 31 percent of American women lived in such states. In 2011, 89 percent of counties in America had no abortion clinics. This is no accident: Across the U.S., lawmakers have enacted 231 new abortion restrictions over the past four years, according to a Guttmacher analysis from January 2015. As a result, many women have to travel great distances to reach an abortion clinic, where they may face 24-hour wait periods. These barriers particularly affect women living in rural areas and low-income women, who often can't afford to take time off work and pay for gas and a hotel room. Other laws force women to go through potentially distressing procedures, such as viewing their own ultrasound photos, in order to move forward with an abortion.
9. MYTH: Women would never have abortions if they knew what it was like to have a child.(07 of08)
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REALITY: Most women who have abortions are already mothers.Sixty-one percent of women who had abortions in 2008 were mothers, and 34 percent had two or more children, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That number only increased after the 2009 financial downturn. The National Abortion Federation told Slate that between 2008 and 2011, 72 percent of women seeking abortions were already mothers. A study from Guttmacher found that mothers typically have abortions to protect the children they already have; they simply cannot afford to raise another child. (credit:Getty Images)
10. MYTH: It is dangerous to perform abortions in clinics that do not meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical clinics. (08 of08)
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REALITY: Requiring abortion clinics to meet these standards does little to improve patient safety and forces many to shut down.Currently, 22 states require abortion clinics to meet a set of restrictive and often arbitrary standards, dictating that they be close to hospitals and that their hallways and closets meet certain measurements. Clinics often need to undergo expensive renovations in order to comply, and leading doctors' groups say the laws do little to improve patient safety.What's more, 11 states now require that doctors at abortion clinics obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, but many hospitals flat-out refuse to grant these privileges. As a result, hospitals essentially have the power to shut down nearby clinics. (credit:Getty Images)

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