When former President Donald Trump invoked “reproductive rights” and said his administration would be “great for women” last month, Democrats and Republicans wondered if he was signaling a change in his policies. After Tuesday night’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, elaborations on his plans for women’s issues are still to be seen.
The majority of the debate was spent dissecting national security, immigration, and foreign relations, leaving some of the biggest issues to women voters, such as abortion, child care, in vitro fertilization, housing costs, and crime hardly discussed.
Prior to the debate, women favored Harris over Trump by 13 points, and Trump held a lead of five points among men, according to a poll by Langer Research Associates and Ipsos.
Abortion, which the majority of women under 45 rank as the most important issue this election, was one of the only women’s issues discussed during the debate, with moderators David Muir and Lindsey Davis planning it as the fourth question of the night.
Harris was firm in her support for the reinstatement of Roe v. Wade, which she has been consistent on.
“I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris said.
When Trump was asked directly by moderators if he would veto an abortion ban if Congress passed one, he said, “We don’t have to discuss it” despite his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), previously saying Trump wouldn’t sign a ban. Trump went on to claim he hadn’t discussed the issue with his counterpart.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later clarified to the Washington Examiner that “President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion and has repeatedly stated he will NOT sign a federal abortion ban.”
Trump claimed the topic of an abortion ban was unnecessary, saying, “This issue has now been taken over by the states.” Fourteen states now have total abortion bans despite 64% of women and 61% of men believing the procedure should be legalized, according to the Public Institute of Health.
Trump did clarify that he thinks there should be exceptions for rape or incest. In 2023, over 64,000 women and girls became pregnant as a result of rape in states without abortion access, according to a research letter by JAMA Internal Medicine.
Trump has not taken much time to address child care, for which costs jumped 9% in 2023. He has previously been unclear about how he would handle rising costs for families. At an event at the Economic Forum, the former president was asked about his plan and didn’t convey a clear answer, which many online took to mean he didn’t have one.
Q: What specific legislation will you commit to to make child care affordable?
Trump: Well, I would do that and we’re sitting down, you know, I was, somebody, we had Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka… But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about… pic.twitter.com/v8gqLUHS2v
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 5, 2024
However, when Vance was asked about lowering child care costs at a campaign event on Sept. 4, he suggested, “Maybe grandma and grandpa want to help out a little bit more,” rather than describing policy.
The Trump campaign told the Washington Examiner the former president will “prioritize expanded access to child care” but did not share a policy plan.
While the topic of IVF did not get much air time during the debate, Trump did say he was “a leader in IVF” after Alabama’s conservative Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were children, halting IVF procedures across the state and raising alarms for IVF accessibility nationally.
Democrats pounced on the ruling, attempting to paint the Republican Party as anti-IVF in order to campaign on it as a reproductive rights issue. Many Republican Congress members have rejected that, with Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) saying, “We strongly support continued nationwide access to in vitro fertilization” in her rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union address.
In response to the Alabama ruling, Trump posted to Truth Social, “Today, I am calling on the Alabama legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama. The Republican party should always be on the side of the miracle of life.”
Last month, Trump went as far as suggesting that IVF should be covered by insurance companies nationally. When asked if the government or insurance companies would pay, he said the insurers would pay “under a mandate.”
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Other Republicans weren’t as sure about the coverage mandate. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) voiced doubts about the plan during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, saying, “There’s no end” if IVF coverage is mandated.
Harris, however, detailed her plans to help families through what she called her “opportunity economy,” which included a $3,600 child tax credit for working families, a $6,000 child tax credit plan for the first year of a child’s life, a $25,000 first-time homebuyer grant, and a dedication to protecting IVF and women’s reproductive rights.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.