Donald Trump has made a series of startling revelations in the past month about the reproductive freedoms he considers up for debate in ways most Americans never imagined.
State lawmakers should be empowered to enact restrictions and punishments for abortion as they please, in Trump's view. They should also have unlimited authority on the means by which they enforce those bans—including putting pregnant women under state surveillance.
And let's not stop at abortion. Just this week, Trump embraced the idea of imposing restrictions on contraception before claiming that Democrats made it all up.
Trump's singular line in the sand on abortion is that it must not foil his chance at reclaiming the White House.
Despite Trump’s efforts to walk back his anti-abortion comments, some two-thirds of voters now believe that Trump thinks abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. A 55% majority think Trump would sign a national ban. And the kicker: Polls routinely show that voters trust President Joe Biden over Trump on abortion, often by a double-digit margin.
Reproductive freedom is also a top concern for young Democratic voters and the biggest deal breaker for voters nationally, meaning they view a candidate’s opposing view as disqualifying. It's also an issue on which the Biden campaign can make up ground with low information voters—one of Biden's weaknesses.
As June approaches—along with the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade—the Biden campaign and Democrats are preparing to flood the zone on an issue that has morphed into the Republican Party's Frankenstein.
Senate Democrats plan to absolutely light up the issue, with floor votes on protecting access to in vitro fertilization and contraception and committee hearings on the consequences in the aftermath of the Dobbs ruling.
The Biden campaign is simultaneously moving through a progression of messages, from educating the public ("Trump did this."), to contrasting the candidates ("Donald Trump doesn't trust women. I do."), to highlighting broader themes about the fundamental freedoms at stake in this election ("He only cares about holding on to power. I care about you.").
Heading into the first debate on June 27, Biden will surely seek to cast reproductive rights—and freedom, more broadly—as a fundamental point of departure between electing himself or Trump to a second term.
Like many Republicans, Donald Trump has tried to sidestep the issue of abortion and reproductive rights. But he stumbled during an interview with a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh this week, promising an “interesting” new policy that would let states restrict contraception..
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