Trump Responds to Newsom’s Abortion Ads

California Governor Gavin Newsom meets with delegates from Norway on April 17, 2024. (Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times)

Former President Donald Trump denounced California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the Democrat promoted an ad characterizing Republicans as a threat to women and abortion laws.

On April 21, Mr. Newsom posted a video on X targeting anti-abortion laws in Alabama, claiming that Republicans were “trying to criminalize young women’s travel to receive abortion care.” The ad video depicts two young women attempting to flee Alabama to obtain an abortion. However, the women are stopped by police and forced to undergo a pregnancy test. President Trump criticized the Democrat in an April 27 Truth Social post, “Gavin Newscum, the failed Governor of California, who is allowing his once beautiful State to go to Hell, refuses to recognize that Republicans are the Leaders on I.V.F. (Fertilization).”

“We are the ones taking care of Women, and now, after 53 years, where both Parties and all Legal Scholars and Experts wanted the always difficult and contentious subject of Abortion to go back to the States, we got it done, and now the States are setting their own Rules and Regulations—and it’s really working! We’ve given the Abortion Issue back to the Voters.”

“It’s clean, it’s decisive, and we’ve taken Radicalization by Democrats, the killing of a Child in the 8th Month, 9th Month, or even after Birth, off the table. It now seems probable that our Country can start to pull together on the always difficult and controversial Issue of Abortion. IT’S UP TO THE STATES NOW, WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS IT, AND WHERE IT ALWAYS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!” President Trump stated.

At the end of the video posted by Mr. Newsom, the audience is encouraged to “take action” by visiting righttotravel.org, a website that accuses Republicans of wanting to “lock women and girls down completely, taking away their constitutional right to travel.”

The ad cites Alabama, Tennessee, and Oklahoma as three states considering bills to prohibit minors from traveling outside their states to get an abortion without parental consent, which the website characterized as imprisoning women and young girls.

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The site states the right to travel is “guaranteed by the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

In a motion filed with a court back in August 2023, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall claimed the state has the right to prosecute people who aid women in traveling to other states for abortions.

“An elective abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense; thus, a conspiracy formed in the State to have that same act performed outside the State is illegal,” he wrote. The right to travel does not give anyone “the right to carry out a criminal conspiracy simply because they propose to do so by purchasing bus passes or driving cars.”

“Prosecuting someone for forming a conspiracy in Alabama is not an extraterritorial application of Alabama law simply because the planned conduct is to occur beyond State lines … The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs. That conduct is Alabama-based and is within Alabama’s power to prohibit.”

Abortion Election Issue

Gov. Newsom has also been targeting Arizona, a Republican state with strict abortion laws.

Earlier this month, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded that a state law from 1864 criminalizing abortion should hold precedence in Arizona following the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Once the law comes into effect on June 8, doctors in the state offering abortions could face prison terms.

In response, Gov. Newsom announced Senate Bill 233 during a press conference on April 24 which allows a doctor from Arizona to provide abortion to an Arizona patient while they are both in California.

Democrats are pushing abortion as a key theme for the election, backing ballot initiatives in battleground states.

In Arizona, a ballot measure proposes an amendment to the state’s constitution that would make abortion a “fundamental right” up to the point a baby can survive outside the womb, which typically occurs at roughly 24 weeks. Similar pro-abortion amendments are being promoted in Colorado, Maryland, and Nevada.

In Florida, a proposed amendment seeks to ensure that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

During a recent visit to the state, President Biden asked supporters to vote for the amendment. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the president’s visit, stating that “Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling, and in November, we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs.”

President Donald Trump has declined to back a national-level abortion ban, insisting that the issue is a state matter.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” he said in a video posted on Truth Social.

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”