Pence says pushing for abortion restrictions is ‘winning issue’ for GOP

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he believes pushing for greater abortion restrictions is a “winning issue” for the Republican Party, as he calls on other GOP presidential candidates to support a national 15-week ban. 

“It’s so much more important than politics to me, but I also think it’s a winning issue. I did this week call on every other candidate for the Republican nomination to support a minimum standard of a 15-week ban on abortion at the national level,” Pence said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that will air this weekend. 

His remarks come after he called on all Republican candidates seeking the party’s nomination for president in 2024 to at least back a 15-week national ban. He made the call on Friday during the annual conference for the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a day before the first anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which declared a constitutional right to abortion. 

“We must not rest, and we must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in this country,” Pence said. “Every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard.” 

About two dozen states have taken action to significantly restrict abortion through either trigger bans that went into effect upon Roe being overturned or other legislation, most of them banning the procedure almost entirely. 

Abortion became one of the major issues of the 2022 midterm elections following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion — which returned abortion access decisions to the states — and many political analysts and commentators viewed the overturning of Roe as key to the disappointing results for the Republican Party on Election Day. 

The president’s party typically loses seats in Congress during the midterms, but Democrats were able to hold onto and slightly expand their majority in the Senate and only narrowly lost control of the House in 2022. Republicans mostly led in the generic congressional ballot before Roe was overturned, but Democrats began to take a lead after. 

Exit polls indicated that abortion was one of the most important issues to voters during the midterms, and those who listed it as their top issue overwhelmingly voted for Democrats. 

Pence argued during the Fox interview that instituting a 15-week ban would align the United States with most of the countries in Europe. Most European nations permit abortion on request at least through the first trimester, but some allow for longer than that. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who introduced a bill to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy in September, said Friday that he hopes for a 15-week ban and called on Republicans to not be “afraid” of the abortion issue. 

“Don’t be afraid of this issue if you’re a Republican,” he said on “The Hill” on NewsNation. “The extreme position is the Democratic position.”