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In the first presidential debate of 2024, former President Donald Trump said he supports the recent US Supreme Court ruling that preserved access to one of the two pills used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the country in 2023. The statement was the clearest on access to the abortion pill to date.
“The Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill and I agree with the decision to have done that,” he said. “And I will not block it.”
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Trump will have broad discretion to curtail abortion access if re-elected. In the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 handbook, a text widely seen as a playbook for Trump’s second term, ex-Trump Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights head Roger Severino argued that a new conservative administration should “announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills.”
Trump is walking a tightrope on abortion, at once taking credit for Roe v Wade being overturned while also warning Republicans that curtailing abortion access is a losing issue with voters. Abortion law should be left up to the states, he reiterated Thursday.
The list of potential anti-abortion measures Trump could enact is long, and the presumptive Republican nominee has historically dodged answering questions about if or what he might do. That includes whether he would enforce the Comstock Act, a set of 1873 laws that restrict the mailing of obscene materials, or in this case, abortion pills sent across state lines.
The Biden campaign has warned Trump could issue a federal abortion ban if reelected, but Trump has repeatedly said he would leave the issue to the states. Trump’s breezy willingness to reverse his policy points, however, was a problem for Democrats in 2016.