The Epoch Times
The Epoch Times
AD
The Epoch Times
Support Us
SHARE
USSocial Issues

IN-DEPTH: Abortion Emerges as a Defining Issue for 2024 Presidential Hopefuls

Candidates try to balance politics and morality in abortion debate

Copy
Facebook
X
Truth
Gettr
LinkedIn
Telegram
Email
Save
IN-DEPTH: Abortion Emerges as a Defining Issue for 2024 Presidential Hopefuls
Pro-life and pro-abortion activists hold signs with opposing views during the 50th annual March for Life rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Jan. 20, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Janice Hisle
By Janice Hisle
5/19/2023Updated: 6/1/2023
0:00

The 2024 presidential election marks the first since the U.S. Supreme Court decided to return abortion authority to the states last year. Since then, it has been a free-for-all, with a patchwork of laws that restrict or protect abortion dotting the nation and, in many cases, spawning legal challenges.

Thus, America’s next president will be thrust into the role of referee in an emotional tug of war over the legality and morality of abortion.

But to win the presidency, each candidate faces a formidable challenge. While thinking about a life-or-death issue, each must also consider the political reality. Each must appease his or her conservative or progressive bloc of supporters. Yet none can afford to alienate independents, whose votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat on Election Day.

In the current climate, voters who used to care little about the abortion issue might be motivated to make it “a much higher priority,” said Michael New, assistant professor of practice at The Catholic University of America.

“I think it creates both opportunities and challenges for both political parties,” he told The Epoch Times.

In recent days, pro-abortion President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and pro-life Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential hopeful, both directed abortion-related barbs at the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump.

And Republican candidate Nikki Haley told a TV interviewer that neither party has enough votes to pass a federal abortion law, so it would be “unrealistic” and divisive to discuss it further.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley greets voters at a town hall event in Bedford, N.H., on April 26, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley greets voters at a town hall event in Bedford, N.H., on April 26, 2023. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

DeSantis, Trump Spar

Trump drew fire from the left and the right on the abortion issue after his CNN town hall appearance on May 10.

The former president, who often responds in a straightforward manner to questions, tiptoed around the topic. Repeatedly asked whether he would sign a federal abortion ban, Trump gave no direct answer. Instead, he made comments such as, “We want to do what’s right for everybody.”

He did denounce “radical” people who want unrestricted access to abortion, even in late-stage pregnancies. Repeating a position he has maintained for years, Trump said he believes that abortions should be allowed under certain circumstances, such as pregnancies involving rape, incest, or life-endangering health conditions.

On May 15, Florida-based publication The Messenger quoted Trump as saying that he thought that many pro-life voters would consider Florida’s new six-week abortion cutoff “too harsh.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a GOP reception in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 13, 2023. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a GOP reception in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 13, 2023. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

“He has to do what he has to do,” Trump said, referring to DeSantis. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”

In a retort to Trump during a news conference, DeSantis said he stood by his decision to approve The Heartbeat Protection Act. The law forbids abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Around that time, or sooner, many fetuses’ heartbeats can be detected.

DeSantis declared: “Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost, probably, 99 percent of pro-lifers support.” He said he was proud to sign the law, and he knocked Trump for refusing to answer whether he would sign a similar measure.

New said he viewed Trump’s abortion position as “evolving,” while DeSantis has locked himself into a stance favoring an abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy.

“Trump has not really expressed clear support for any kind of federal legislation just yet. Now, that may change,” New said. “But that does create an opening for DeSantis, and it may create an opening for other Republican candidates” to snare pro-life votes.

Mission Impossible?

During his CNN appearance, Trump said he would “negotiate” abortion restrictions, “so that people are happy.”
In a later interview with Newsmax, Trump said, “We’re in the position now where we can get something that the whole country can agree with.”
Abortion is a non-negotiable issue for about one-quarter of U.S. voters, according to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Those voters said that “they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion,” according to the 50-state survey that PRRI released earlier this year. The survey also found that 20 percent of voters give abortion little weight.

“I don’t think President Trump can find legislation that will make everybody happy with this issue. That’s impossible. People disagree,” New said.

Earlier this month, NARAL Pro-Choice America stated that a research firm found that “an overwhelming majority of voters reject the argument that banning abortion at 15 weeks is a ‘compromise’ on abortion rights.” Formerly known as the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, NARAL has a political action committee that ranks among the wealthiest single-issue PACs and has played a crucial role in close races.

Further, NARAL said, 73 percent of voters—“including a majority of 2020 Trump voters” and 3 out of 4 independents—“believe things have gone too far.” As of early May, 19 states had eliminated or restricted abortion, NARAL said.

New cautioned against putting too much weight on abortion polls, as the results are “very sensitive to how they’re worded,” he said.

Then-President Donald Trump shows a signed executive order to reinstitute a policy barring any recipient of U.S. assistance from performing or promoting abortions abroad with money they receive from non-U.S. sources in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Then-President Donald Trump shows a signed executive order to reinstitute a policy barring any recipient of U.S. assistance from performing or promoting abortions abroad with money they receive from non-U.S. sources in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2017. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

‘Killing’ Roe v. Wade

PRRI and other surveys have found that about half of Americans disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade.

That 1973 ruling classified a woman’s decision to abort a pregnancy as a constitutionally protected right up until the point when a fetus was viable enough to live outside the womb. However, the Supreme Court nullified that ruling by a 6–3 vote in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, stating, “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”

Amy O'Donnell, spokeswoman for Texas Alliance for Life, told The Epoch Times that Trump, who appointed three conservative justices during his presidency, deserves credit for his work in the pro-life arena.

“It is important to recognize that President Trump made great gains in the pro-life movement and kept his promises as far as advocating for the protection of life,” she said. “So we have to just pause and show our gratitude for that. He definitely prioritized life in his first presidency.”

In a May 15 post on social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ’shock' of everyone, and for the first time put the pro-life movement in a strong negotiating position over the radicals that are willing to kill babies even into their ninth month, and beyond.

“Without me, there would be no six weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is finally agreed to. Without me, the pro-life movement would have just kept losing. Thank you, President Trump!!!”

Warning From Biden

Biden, who is running for a second term, used that post as ammunition against Trump.
On his personal Twitter account, Biden posted a screenshot of Trump’s statement and wrote: “That’s about as clear as it gets. Donald Trump and MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans are responsible for killing Roe v. Wade. And if you vote for them, they’ll go even further.”

Biden’s Twitter post was viewed 9 million times within a day after it was posted; more than 81,000 people indicated they liked it.

But Biden’s opinion didn’t sit well with Mindy Robinson, an independent journalist and host of the show “Conspiracy Truths” on the crowdfunded website America Happens Network.

She responded, in part: “Go ‘further’ than allowing the people in different states to [choose] for themselves on what to do about the topic? Yea ... how ‘awful.’”

President Joe Biden addresses the nation at the White House following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in Washington on June 24, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden addresses the nation at the White House following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in Washington on June 24, 2022. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Throughout his administration, Biden’s office has issued statements describing abortion as a necessary type of “health care.”

In July, following the Dobbs decision, the White House released a statement denouncing it.

“Fundamental rights—to privacy, autonomy, freedom, and equality—have been denied to millions of women across the country, with grave implications for their health, lives, and wellbeing,” the White House statement read. “This ruling will disproportionately affect women of color, low-income women, and rural women.

“President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law.”

In the meantime, according to the statement, Biden had signed an executive order “protecting access to reproductive care services” and instructed the Department of Health and Human Services “to protect and expand access to abortion care,” including access to abortion pills.

Democrats Versus Republicans

Biden’s position appears likely to play well with Democrats, based on PRRI’s findings.

When party affiliation is factored into the abortion debate, the differences between Republicans and Democrats appear stark.Only about one-third of Republicans favor keeping most abortions legal; that number has remained relatively steady for more than a decade.

In contrast, support for abortion among Democrats has increased 16 percentage points since 2010; in 2022, 87 percent of Democrats favored abortion access in most cases, the PRRI survey said.

Both Trump and Biden have shifted their attitudes about abortion over the years, too.

In 1982, near the beginning of his longtime political career as a Democrat, Biden voted in favor of an amendment that sought to overturn Roe. At the time, Biden said it was a difficult decision because of his religious affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church, which staunchly opposes abortion. However, Biden voted the opposite way against the same amendment a year later, according to congressional records.
In 1999, Trump told NBC’s “Meet The Press” that he was “very pro-choice.” But he also said he was disquieted over abortion procedures. He viewed abortion as a personal decision between women and their doctors and wished it would stay out of politics. But in the 2000 book “The America We Deserve,” Trump reflected on that interview and said that after speaking with doctors he respected, he decided he would support a ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, performed late in pregnancy.

By late 2015, Trump was calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the top provider of abortions in the United States. He also was saying he wanted to consider looking at overturning Roe.

The Epoch Times sought comment from Planned Parenthood and several other pro-abortion groups, but received no response by press time.

Concerns Among Pro-Life Leaders

Trump’s recent remarks have caused pro-life leaders to worry about a possible change in his stance again.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Trump’s CNN town hall highlighted the importance of the abortion issue in the 2024 election cycle.

He called the Trump administration “the most pro-life in our history.” In a May 11 commentary, Perkins lauded Trump for “graphically [describing] the brutality of the abortion procedure” during a 2016 presidential debate against Hillary Clinton. He also cited Trump’s appointment of the three conservative Supreme Court justices—Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh—as “a signal achievement.”
Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2021. Seated from left: Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Standing from left: Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. (Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images)
Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2021. Seated from left: Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Standing from left: Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images
But Perkins was “deeply concerned” after a Trump spokesman recently said that the former president believes abortion should be decided at the state level.
Perkins also disliked that while many Republicans were “glad to see the end of the fictional constitutional right to abortion,” some “seemed more glad to kick the life issue back to the states than take any further action.”

A former Louisiana state lawmaker who crafted pro-life legislation, Perkins said that “personhood in the womb is not just a state issue—it is the most profound of all human rights issues” and “it merits federal consideration—and protection.”

In May, when Perkins and other pro-life leaders met with Trump in Miami, “Mr. Trump reaffirmed his commitment to protecting children who can feel pain and are actually sucking their thumb in their mother’s womb,” Perkins said. “His horror at late-term abortion and the incredible idea that some so-called ‘unwanted’ children could be left to die after birth remains unchanged.

Perkins said he would not be endorsing any candidates in the primary but would work with Trump and all other candidates on “issues impacting faith, family, and freedom.”

O'Donnell, the Texas Alliance for Life spokeswoman, said that her group “would like to see a candidate who would like to see every state in the United States look like Texas, where life is protected from conception, on.”

“At a bare minimum, anybody that we endorse must at least be for a 15-week protection of life law that is a federal law across the United States. And that’s just something that we’re going to look for before we put forward any endorsement from our organization,” she said.

O'Donnell acknowledged that while many pro-life advocates favor an all-out abortion ban, “when it comes to protecting life, one of the things that we’ve learned in Texas is that we have to make incremental gains.”

“The first time we try to advance a law may not be the first time that that law passes. But we believe that we’re making some progress, that we’re planting seeds. And then we’re going to keep making the effort until it does pass,” she said.

“Our track record has shown that that approach has brought us tremendous pro-life gains in our state. And I believe that that will happen at the federal level as well.”

Not Sole Factor

Some pundits describe abortion as a “wedge issue” that Democrats can use to differentiate themselves from Republicans, as well as to attract votes from Republican-leaning voters who are not strongly against abortion.

But others dispute whether abortion wields as much political sway as it once did.

In a pre-Dobbs Politico article in May 2022, Sarah Isgur, a Harvard University law school graduate and former Justice Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration, acknowledged that a prediction she made in 2021 was wrong. She thought Republicans would see political backlash over abortion. “Instead, Republicans saw near-universal gains across the country,” she wrote.
Sarah Isgur at the Glamour & Facebook Launch of Women's Initiative for 2016 Election at POV Lounge in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2016. (Kris Connor/Getty Images for Glamour)
Sarah Isgur at the Glamour & Facebook Launch of Women's Initiative for 2016 Election at POV Lounge in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2016. Kris Connor/Getty Images for Glamour

“After 50 years of abortion politics sorting voters, maybe there is nobody left to lash back.”

Perhaps the vast majority of voters who care deeply about abortion or other issues may have already changed their party affiliations to align with the parties’ “increasingly firm” stances on abortion, she suggests.

If Democrats do push hard on the abortion issue, they risk putting off Latino and black Democratic voters, “who are already more conservative than white Democrats on many social issues, including abortion,” Isgur said.

Janice Hisle
Janice Hisle
Reporter
Janice Hisle mainly writes in-depth reports based on U.S. political news and cultural trends, following a two-year stint covering President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign. Before joining The Epoch Times in 2022, she worked more than two decades as a reporter for newspapers in Ohio and authored several books. She is a graduate of Kent State University's journalism program. You can reach Janice at: [email protected]
twitter
truth
Author’s Selected Articles

4 Takeaways From Confirmation Hearing of Trump’s IRS Nominee

May 20, 2025
4 Takeaways From Confirmation Hearing of Trump’s IRS Nominee

Trump’s Pick to Head IRS Set for Long-Delayed Confirmation Hearing

May 20, 2025
Trump’s Pick to Head IRS Set for Long-Delayed Confirmation Hearing

Former FBI Director Comey Faces Probes Over ‘86-47’ Post

May 16, 2025
Former FBI Director Comey Faces Probes Over ‘86-47’ Post

Appeals Court Affirms Pro-Life Flight Attendant’s Main Claim

May 09, 2025
Appeals Court Affirms Pro-Life Flight Attendant’s Main Claim
Related Topics
Donald Trump
abortion
Save
The Epoch Times
Copyright © 2000 - 2025 The Epoch Times Association Inc. All Rights Reserved.