GOP really wants to hide its anti-abortion plans. Just look at JD Vance
Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, is an anti-abortion extremist, but like the rest of the GOP, he’s doing his damnedest to cover that fact up. First, he scrapped the anti-abortion screed from the website for his Senate campaign, then he falsely insisted Democrats and the media were twisting his words on abortion. Before he was Republicans’ VP nominee, Vance declared on his website: I am 100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured. Eliminating abortion is first and foremost about protecting the unborn, but it’s also about making our society more pro-child and pro-family. Get that? “Eliminating abortion.” That’s his goal. During an interview at the Republican National Convention on Monday, Vance told Fox News host Sean Hannity, “The Democrats have completely twisted my words” about whether he believes a pro-abortion-rights society thinks children are inconveniences. But what Democrats have pointed out is that he extends that label to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Abortions that he doesn’t think should be allowed. Society shouldn’t view those pregnancies as inconvenient, he said in a 2021 interview, explaining his support for a federal ban on abortion without exceptions for rape and incest. “I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said. “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It’s whether a child should be allowed to live.” There are also Vance’s words when he signed onto a letter telling Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the dormant 1873 Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide by ending access to abortion pills, calling for the prosecution of physicians, pharmacists, and others “who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws” by providing the drugs through the mail. Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota doesn’t believe Vance is backing away from his extreme position. “The threat that a future Trump-Vance administration will misuse Comstock to ban abortion nationwide is now a five-alarm fire,” she told the Washington Post. Smith is the lead sponsor in an effort to repeal the Comstock Act. She’s likely right. The blueprint for a Trump-Vance administration is already written in Project 2025, which includes the resurrection of that ancient law. It is absolutely their intent to use it to ban abortion. One of the architects of Project 2025, Jonathan F. Mitchell stated so baldly in an interview with The New York Times in February. “We don’t need a federal ban [on abortion] when we have Comstock on the books,” he said. Now Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, which is the primary force behind Project 2025, is trying to claim that the letter Vance signed onto to invoke the Comstock Act isn’t about banning abortion but “will likely be demagogued by the left to falsely claim it will lead to a national ban on access to chemical abortion pills,” Severino said. This is part and parcel of the supposed softening of anti-abortion language in the policy platform Trump essentially dictated and the Republican National Committee adopted. It leaves out any mention of “unborn children” but embraces the radical position that the 14th Amendment gives full personhood rights starting with fertilized eggs. Trump himself is insisting he wouldn’t need to sign a nationwide abortion ban, because his Supreme Court came up with the solution “that all legal scholars—both sides—wanted, and, in fact, demanded”—which is to say, leaving it up to the states to decide. Never mind that all legal scholars were definitely not demanding that. It also eludes the real threat: Trump could invoke the Comstock Act and ban abortion nationwide by fiat. No Republican at the convention wanted to talk about abortion and the extreme position they have embraced. But don’t be fooled by the cover-up that Trump, Vance, or the Heritage Foundation are attempting. RELATED STORIES: Don’t be gaslighted: JD Vance is an anti-abortion extremist Trump reveals his true abortion position: Lying to win elections Senate Democrats seek to nuke archaic law that could squash abortion rights Trump’s platform is a gift for abortion foes. He hopes nobody notices Campaign Action
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Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, is an anti-abortion extremist, but like the rest of the GOP, he’s doing his damnedest to cover that fact up. First, he scrapped the anti-abortion screed from the website for his Senate campaign, then he falsely insisted Democrats and the media were twisting his words on abortion.
Before he was Republicans’ VP nominee, Vance declared on his website:
I am 100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured. Eliminating abortion is first and foremost about protecting the unborn, but it’s also about making our society more pro-child and pro-family.
Get that? “Eliminating abortion.” That’s his goal.
During an interview at the Republican National Convention on Monday, Vance told Fox News host Sean Hannity, “The Democrats have completely twisted my words” about whether he believes a pro-abortion-rights society thinks children are inconveniences. But what Democrats have pointed out is that he extends that label to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Abortions that he doesn’t think should be allowed.
Society shouldn’t view those pregnancies as inconvenient, he said in a 2021 interview, explaining his support for a federal ban on abortion without exceptions for rape and incest.
“I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said. “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It’s whether a child should be allowed to live.”
There are also Vance’s words when he signed onto a letter telling Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the dormant 1873 Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide by ending access to abortion pills, calling for the prosecution of physicians, pharmacists, and others “who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws” by providing the drugs through the mail.
Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota doesn’t believe Vance is backing away from his extreme position. “The threat that a future Trump-Vance administration will misuse Comstock to ban abortion nationwide is now a five-alarm fire,” she told the Washington Post. Smith is the lead sponsor in an effort to repeal the Comstock Act.
She’s likely right. The blueprint for a Trump-Vance administration is already written in Project 2025, which includes the resurrection of that ancient law. It is absolutely their intent to use it to ban abortion.
One of the architects of Project 2025, Jonathan F. Mitchell stated so baldly in an interview with The New York Times in February. “We don’t need a federal ban [on abortion] when we have Comstock on the books,” he said.
Now Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, which is the primary force behind Project 2025, is trying to claim that the letter Vance signed onto to invoke the Comstock Act isn’t about banning abortion but “will likely be demagogued by the left to falsely claim it will lead to a national ban on access to chemical abortion pills,” Severino said.
This is part and parcel of the supposed softening of anti-abortion language in the policy platform Trump essentially dictated and the Republican National Committee adopted. It leaves out any mention of “unborn children” but embraces the radical position that the 14th Amendment gives full personhood rights starting with fertilized eggs.
Trump himself is insisting he wouldn’t need to sign a nationwide abortion ban, because his Supreme Court came up with the solution “that all legal scholars—both sides—wanted, and, in fact, demanded”—which is to say, leaving it up to the states to decide. Never mind that all legal scholars were definitely not demanding that. It also eludes the real threat: Trump could invoke the Comstock Act and ban abortion nationwide by fiat.
No Republican at the convention wanted to talk about abortion and the extreme position they have embraced. But don’t be fooled by the cover-up that Trump, Vance, or the Heritage Foundation are attempting.
RELATED STORIES:
Don’t be gaslighted: JD Vance is an anti-abortion extremist
Trump reveals his true abortion position: Lying to win elections
Senate Democrats seek to nuke archaic law that could squash abortion rights
Trump’s platform is a gift for abortion foes. He hopes nobody notices
