(IntegrityPress.org) – Donald Trump has hit back at his former vice-president, Mike Pence, over comments the latter made about Trump’s recent words on abortion. After Trump refused to take a fully anti-abortion stance on Monday, April 8, saying that abortion law should be decided by the states, Pence accused him of betraying his voter base and called the presumptive Republican nominee’s comments “a slap in the face” to pro-life Republicans.
Trump reiterated his stance on Wednesday, April 10, posting on his social media site “Truth Social” that abortion rights should be granted by the states, and not decided by federal law. He added that “all legal scholars” agreed with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which turned powers over abortion laws back to each state. Trump also took credit for the 2022 landmark ruling, as all three of his supreme court nominees – Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – voted to overturn the 1973 ruling.
Previously, Trump had alluded to the possibility of introducing a federal restriction on abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation as a compromise that would “make both sides happy”, something that he claimed in his Wednesday post was an idea backed by Pence himself after Pence had reportedly softened his anti-abortion position. Pence campaigned for the 2024 presidential nomination as a pro-life candidate, championing the notion of a federal ban on abortions after six weeks of gestation. In rebuking Trump’s recent refusal to endorse the idea of a federal ban, Pence accused him of marginalizing “the cause of life” and suggested that pro-life Republicans would continue to work to defend human life “from womb to tomb”.
Trump, however, said that the pro-life movement had benefitted massively from his appointment of conservative supreme court justices who turned abortion rights over to the states and gave pro-life advocates a better chance to “compassionately support” mothers and their unborn babies. He also suggested that there was little point in trying to push for a federal ban as the Republican party lacked the necessary numbers in the Senate to progress such legislation.
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