Abortion policy divides field of GOP presidential candidates

DES MOINES — At what point in a pregnancy should abortions be legal, if at all? And should that legal question be answered by the state or the federal government?

Those key questions have moved to the center of the 2024 Republican presidential primary, and the varied viewpoints among the field of candidates were on full display this past weekend in Iowa.

The current debate was created in no small part by a 2022 ruling by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a 1972 opinion that had created a federal right to an abortion up to roughly the 20th week of pregnancy.

Most of the 10 Republican presidential candidates who appeared Saturday night at a fundraising event hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a Christian conservative advocacy organization, were asked one of those two questions about abortion policy. And one top-tier candidate who was not in Iowa last weekend — former president and current primary polling leader Donald Trump — was asked about the topic during a national TV interview that aired over the weekend.

In Iowa, abortion remains legal until roughly 20 weeks of pregnancy. However, Gov. Kim Reynolds and fellow Republican state lawmakers have passed a law that would ban abortions once a fetus’ heartbeat can be detected — at roughly six weeks of pregnancy, advocates for such laws say. That law is being challenged in the state courts.

One consistent theme throughout the Republican president candidates’ thoughts were some attempts to portray Democrats as having the extreme viewpoint on abortion policy, even though that claim does not hold up against public polling.

A majority of Americans have said abortion should remain legal in all or most cases over decades of polling, according to historical data from Pew Research and Gallup Polling. And in its most recent figures, Pew polling shows that 62 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal “in all or most cases,” against just 36 percent who believe it should be illegal in all or most cases.

As to the question of specific abortion policy in a post-Roe v. Wade legal landscape, there are multiple viewpoints within the field of Republican presidential candidates.

Trump, during an interview with NBC News, said he has a plan to unite Americans on the topic but offered no specifics on any such plan. Trump said a number of weeks into pregnancy will be chosen to ban abortions, but declined to say how many weeks that would be and whether it would be determined at the state or federal level.

“Let me just tell you what I’d do. I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy. … I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. … We have to bring the country together on this issue.”

But Trump did not directly answer how many weeks that would be, and whether it would be implemented by the states or federal government.

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Back in Iowa, Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, reiterated his support for a federal ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy. A 15-week ban has become a somewhat popular idea among Republicans because it is built around the suggestion that’s when a fetus begins to feel pain.

However, that assertion is not supported by a majority of medical experts, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Disagreements with those expert views largely center around the definition of pain, and at what point a fetus’ organs and neurological system are sufficiently developed to experience what is commonly known as pain.

“I believe even as we work relentlessly to advance protections for the unborn in every state capitol in America, I believe that we owe it to the American people to elect a president who will fight for a minimum standard in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said while making the claim about when a fetus could feel pain. “It’s a 15-week minimum ban. I believe it’s an idea whose time as come. Why would we leave unborn babies in California and Illinois and New York to the devices of liberal state legislatures and liberal governors? We need to stand for the unborn all across America.”

Former Texas U.S. Rep. Will Hurd also expressed support for a 15-week federal ban, and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson said he believes life begins at conception.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in 2021 signed into law there a near-total ban on abortions, which did not include any exceptions in cases of rape or incest. He said last weekend he would sign into federal law any “pro-life” legislation passed by Congress that has “reasonable exceptions,” and attempted to throw cold water on Trump’s notion of bringing Americans together on the subject.

“Let me tell you, both sides aren’t going to like it. This is going to be a fight for life, and we’ve been doing that for 40 years. You take a stand. You state your position,” Hutchinson said.

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Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, reiterated her suggestion that the federal ban debate should not be the focus because of how unlikely it is to happen. Haley reminded those in attendance Saturday that any such legislation would require at least 60 anti-abortion rights Republicans in the U.S. Senate to avoid a bill-killing filibuster. There has not been 60 Republicans in the U.S. Senate in more than a century, since 1910.

“So no Republican president can any more ban abortions than a Democrat president can ban those state laws,” Haley said. “So my goal is how do we save as many babies as possible and support as many moms as possible? The way we do that is bring people together.”

Haley said her plan to do that would be to find areas of bipartisan agreement on abortion policy, including by banning late-term abortions — which are exceptionally rare — and encouraging adoptions, allowing medical professionals to decline performing abortions if it violates their personal belief and not charging with a crime any woman who has an abortion.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed into law an abortion ban very similar to Iowa’s so-called fetal heartbeat bill, said that he believes states “have done the better job” with abortion policy, and “so far Congress has not.”

Conservative media personality Larry Elder also said that he believes abortion policy should be left to the states, and not the federal government.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com