Top Anti-Abortion Leader Is Telling Her Followers Not to Vote for Trump

If elected, Donald Trump would wield the office of the presidency to impose a national abortion ban—we know that because some of his top advisors and allies wrote a fun, little 900-page plan, titled Project 2025, to do so. But because abortion rights are popular, Trump has recently tried pivoting, first insisting he’d leave abortion up to the states (which is what’s happening, and which is bad!), then, last month, proclaiming that he’d be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” Last week, Trump made comments initially suggesting he’d vote for Florida’s abortion rights ballot measure, Amendment 4, only to walk that back and make out-of-pocket, delusional claims about abortion “executing” newborn babies.

Nevertheless, Trump’s attempts to both-sides probably the least both-sides-able issue on earth are starting to miff anti-abortion leaders like Live Action’s Lila Rose, one of the most widely followed, militant anti-abortion voices in the world. For context into how extreme Rose is, in March, she co-authored a letter imploring Alabama’s Republican governor to veto a bill to protect IVF, claiming it’s “not a morally neutral issue,” and adding that “a child in the embryonic stage of development” should “be accorded the same human rights and level of dignity that all other human beings…are granted.” In 2019, Rose, invited by then-President Trump, spoke at a White House summit on the imagined issue of online censorship of anti-abortion voices.

Speaking to Politico last week, Rose said she’s urging her hundreds of thousands of followers to not vote for Trump: “The recent statements that they [Trump and JD Vance] have been making—increasingly pro-abortion statements—and the positions that they are choosing to take are making it untenable for pro-life voters to get out the vote for them,” Rose said. “This is, unfortunately, the path that they’ve chosen.” Asked to clarify whether she’d ultimately vote for Trump, Rose said she’s “going to see how the next few weeks unfold,” but that “if the election were today, I would not vote for Harris or Trump based on their policies and their statements and their positions.” 

To state the obvious, Trump’s supposedly moderate stance is a performance akin to my mom getting me in the car for a dentist’s appointment when I was a small child by telling me we were going to get donuts—it’s bullshit. He’s suggested restricting birth control, surveilling pregnancies, punishing patients for abortions, and appointed Project 2025 authors to help write the Republican Party platform. He openly brags about being the one to kill Roe v. Wade. The idea that he wouldn’t touch abortion and would leave it to the states, that he’d be “great” for reproductive rights, is a fantasy that not even a kindergartener should fall for. 

Positions that the Trump campaign has taken in last few weeks, a departure from how he ran in 2016 and how he governed as President, that I think will cost Trump the election:

—Supports taxpayer funded IVF for all or force insurance companies to pay for it. This is to the Left…

— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) September 1, 2024

Of course, when Politico raised this, Rose adamantly disagreed: “You’re saying that people think Trump’s lying about his position right now, and when he gets into office he’ll secretly do pro-life things? I think that’s pie-in-the sky thinking.” She said the Trump campaign has given her “no confirmation” they’d push an anti-abortion agenda if elected, and added, “If he actually is secretly pro-life and he’s just doing this to win both—I think it’s morally wrong and it’s extremely misguided politically.” That is… somewhat true! Being “pro-life” at all, secretly or otherwise, is an abominable position that relies on subjugating and dehumanizing pregnant people, but at the very least, don’t just lie to people for electoral reasons. 

Rose further pointed to Vance’s recent pledge that Trump would veto a national abortion ban—without acknowledging that Trump could, and would, bypass Congress to enact a ban through other means—and Trump’s recent, deeply confused comments about mifepristone abortion pills, suggesting she believes Trump supports abortion pills. (He doesn’t!)

I saw an awful lot of people praising Lila Rose because she temporarily opposed Trump. She’s no better than he is https://t.co/BLMgkBsLhS

— Mister Magic (@Mr_JamesLandis) September 3, 2024

Rose further observed that where “abortion was a headline issue at the DNC,” by contrast, “Trump’s response to that is saying, ‘Well, I guess I’m going to alienate my base.’ He’s not getting Kamala’s base.” She’s correct that Trump and the GOP are very noticeably trying to distance themselves from their anti-abortion views; their party platform doesn’t mention an abortion ban, once their keynote issue, but sneakily calls for fetal personhood. To her point, Trump likely isn’t winning over any adamant abortion rights supporters who are informed enough to see through his bullshit, but I don’t think he’s trying to. It’s more likely he’s performing a moderate position to convince independent voters he’s not some extremist to try and distance himself from the daily horrors being wrought by the state-level abortion bans that he empowered.

The rest of the head-spinning interview includes Rose suggesting she’d write-in a presidential candidate if Trump doesn’t change course, blaming Trump’s advisers, and arguing against his position as politically stupid, pointing to “landslide victories for strong pro-life executive candidates, like Florida and Texas with Gov. [Greg] Abbott and Gov. [Ron] DeSantis.” I know that last one has to sting for Trump, who spent the entirety of the GOP primary bullying and calling DeSantis unelectable.

It’s not just Rose: Last month, the conservative outlet the National Review accused Trump of “abandoning pro-lifers.” Even before Trump promised (read: lied) that he’d leave abortion up to the states, he consistently claimed he’d make compromises that pro-choice people could support and randomly backed a 16-week abortion ban, facing criticism from several top anti-abortion groups along the way.

The broad electoral popularity of abortion rights appears to have the anti-abortion movement poised to cannibalize itself and sabotage the man who quite literally delivered the kill shot to Roe, all because he’s trying to win the election—which would incidentally set him up to further hack away at abortion rights. Everything is terrible but this is, if nothing else, at least kind of funny!