Former President Donald Trump responded to backlash over his recent comments on abortion in a Tuesday Truth Social post.
Trump received a letter from the pro-life group Students for Life calling on him to “clarify his disappointing remarks” after he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban a “terrible mistake” in a recent NBC News interview. The six-week ban went into effect after Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in April.
Trump doubled down on his abortion stance by touting his role in the overturning of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
“I was able to do something that nobody thought was possible, end Roe v. Wade,” Trump said on Truth Social. “For 52 years, people talked, spent vast amounts of money, but couldn’t get the job done. I got the job done! Thanks to the three great Supreme Court Justices I appointed, this issue has been returned to the States, where all Legal Scholars, on both sides, felt it should be. Now the Pro Life Community has TREMENDOUS NEGOTIATING POWER…”
The former president appointed three conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — who all joined the majority in the 6-3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision returned abortion laws back to the state level. (RELATED: ‘The Right Thing To Do’: DeSantis Defends Six-Week Abortion Ban After Trump Calling It ‘Too Harsh’)
Trump also became the first president to speak at the annual March for Life in Washington D.C., which peacefully protests abortion on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade being handed down.
Pro-life leaders from SBA Pro-Life America and Live Action told the Daily Caller News Foundation Monday that that Trump needs to “get on board” and that there is “no reason” why he could not support a complete abortion ban.
DeSantis defended the six-week abortion restriction, which bans abortion after an unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected, after Trump’s criticism.
“Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost, probably 99% of pro-lifers support,” DeSantis said at a May 16 press event. “It’s something that other states like Iowa under Governor Kim Reynolds have enacted, and I think that as a Florida resident, he didn’t give an answer about, would you have signed the Heartbeat Bill that Florida did. It had all the exceptions that people talk about, the legislature put it in, I signed the bill, I was proud to do it. He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”
Other states including Georgia and South Carolina also ban abortion at six weeks. Several states have enacted or upheld a total ban on abortion following the Dobbs ruling.