Dear Conservative Women: You’ve Been Duped

Donald J. Trump is a man who lies about everything—especially abortion—yet some voters believe his claims that, if elected, he will continue to leave abortion to the states.

This false belief partly explains why pro-abortion ballot measures are polling better than the Democratic candidates who support abortion rights. Data from October showed that large swaths of voters in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida support both Trump and the abortion amendments in their states.

Voters have also recently been telling reporters that they just don’t think Trump would—or even could—ban the procedure nationwide.

A 27-year-old mother named Emily Jones told the Washington Post she’s voting for Arizona’s abortion amendment and for Donald Trump—despite the fact that she had an abortion after an ectopic pregnancy, which may have saved her life. Jones, a registered independent, told the Post she believes that Trump only wants to ban abortions later in pregnancy. And despite the fact that she and her husband don’t want any more kids due to risks to her health, she believes she’ll still be able to get an abortion if necessary. “I don’t think he’ll actually outright ban it,” Jones said. “I think he’s learned.” Leaving aside that this quote reeks of Sen. Susan Collins, no one needs a later abortion until they do, and sometimes that’s after receiving new medical information at, say, your 20-week checkup.

A 60-year-old male voter in Arizona, who apparently has never heard of Project 2025, told the Post that a possible Trump administration can’t do anything on its own to restrict or ban abortion. “There’s nothing more the executive branch can do,” he said, adding, “He’s already said he won’t sign a national ban.”

“A lot of people don’t realize that Trump is not 100% against abortion, he’s leaving it up to the states to decide,” a woman in North Carolina, named Debbie, told Astead W. Herndon, host of The Run Up. “And they’re pushing it that he’s gonna say ‘oh we’re gonna do away with abortion’ and stuff like that. He’s not going to.”

But the executive branch can do a lot in the absence of Roe v. Wade—the overturning of which was made possible by Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments. The Department of Health and Human Services could revoke the FDA approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion regimen. HHS could also say that emergency departments that receive federal funding are prohibited from performing abortions when a woman’s health, but not her life, is in danger. The Biden administration is currently defending the right to emergency abortion care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in a federal lawsuit against Idaho. If Trump wins, this lawsuit would end, and Trump’s HHS would refuse to recognize abortion as protected under EMTALA.

A Trump Department of Justice could also begin enforcing the Comstock Act of 1873, a zombie law that conservatives argue can be revived to ban the mailing of abortion medications nationwide, and potentially any supplies used for abortion procedures. The former shuts down abortion pills, which made up more than 60% of all reported abortions in 2023 while the latter could halt all abortion procedures.

And while a Republican-controlled Congress may not pass a total ban from fertilization, they could move to ban care after 15 weeks. That’s still a federal ban, no matter what people like JD Vance say.

Trump has been talking out of both sides of his mouth on abortion this entire campaign, like first supporting Florida’s abortion amendment before opposing it, but I think certain comments of his are very telling. Back in the spring and summer, Trump ended statements about abortion being a state, not federal, issue by noting that getting elected was an important consideration for him. And just three weeks ago, Trump said a national ban was “off the table,” before adding, ominously, “Now, we’ll see what happens.” The man is all but blurting out that he just needs to stick to a states’ rights argument to win, and then all bets are off.

At the end of the day, I encourage people to watch this clip from a September 2020 debate in which Trump lies through his teeth that then-nominee Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t a threat to Roe when she was picked explicitly for that purpose. Sorry not sorry to link my own tweet:

If anyone believes that Trump’s latest word vomit is a truthful pledge not to ban abortion, please recall that in a 2020 debate he swore Roe v. Wade was safe:

“It’s not on the ballot; there’s nothing happening there. You don’t know [Amy Coney Barrett’s] view on Roe” pic.twitter.com/lHvC6JmtLd

— Susan Rinkunas (@SusanRinkunas) April 8, 2024

So, independent and conservative women: Are you going to let him fool you again?