Trump says up to states to decide abortion

Abortion rights should be left up to US states to decide, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Monday, after months of mixed signals on one of the November election's most contentious flashpoints.

"My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both," the de facto Republican presidential nominee said in a video posted on his Truth Social network.

"And whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state."

Trump's November opponent, US President Joe Biden, is a devout Catholic but has stood firm in his support for abortion access, stating repeatedly that if Congress tries to enact a national abortion ban, he will veto it.

In his statement, Trump did not mention a national abortion ban at all, potentially leaving himself some room as Republicans struggle to stake out a definitive line on an issue championed by conservatives for decades but unpopular with the wider American public. He did not say whether as president he would veto a Republican attempt to enact such a ban.

"Donald Trump is endorsing every single abortion ban in the states, including abortion bans with no exceptions. And he's bragging about his role in creating this hellscape," Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Questions have swirled for weeks over Trump's attempt to stake out a position.

He has stated often that he is proud of stacking the US Supreme Court with three conservative justices during his presidency, giving them a majority which allowed them to overturn Roe v Wade -- the ruling enshrining the federal right to abortion -- in a shock 2022 decision.

But Trump has also often sought to leave enough ambiguity in his position to try to avoid alienating centrist voters, while retaining his hard-right base.

In February, a New York Times article that said Trump had told advisers he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban but was hesitant to address it publicly lest he alienate socially conservative supporters, who want to ban the procedure for pregnancies that go beyond just a handful of weeks.

The head of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony group said after Trump's statement she was "deeply disappointed."

"Saying the issue is 'back to the states' cedes the national debate to the Democrats," said Marjorie Dannenfelser.

Exceptions

The 2022 Supreme Court decision left it to states to establish their own laws on reproductive rights, ending the decades-long national protection for abortion access.

Some Republican-led states have enacted near-total bans while other states, like Maryland, passed laws to enshrine abortion rights into law. Many conservatives hope a national ban could override laws like Maryland's.

But a comfortable majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in most cases, according to extensive polling, and around half of states have measures in place to protect access.

Since Roe fell, abortion rights advocates have won seven straight referendum victories.

Democrats have been leaning strongly into the issue -- characterizing Trump as the architect of attacks on reproductive rights, while vowing to reinstate Roe if they regain control of Congress, where Republicans currently lead the House of Representatives.

Republicans were punished in the 2022 midterm elections as candidates lost key battlegrounds to rivals supporting abortion rights.

In his video, Trump did not clarify at what number of weeks he himself supported a ban.

He repeated earlier comments that, like former Republican president Ronald Reagan, when it comes to abortion he is "strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother."

And he said again that he "strongly" supports IVF access for "couples who are trying to have a precious baby."

Experts say the Supreme Court ruling effectively granted states the final say on questions of personhood, paving the way for wide-reaching impacts on other areas of reproductive health, including in vitro fertilization.