On abortion, Republicans want to change the subject — but Trump won’t let them

Remember when Republicans were celebrating back in June 2022 what they saw as a big victory in the war over abortion rights in America? The Supreme Court had just overturned Roe v. Wade, sending the abortion issue to the states. If Republicans are still celebrating, that means just one thing — they haven’t been paying attention.

For a lot of Americans, abortion is a moral issue. They believe life begins at conception and to abort that life amounts to murder. But abortion is also a political issue — one that has been a loser for Republicans. 

Nothing energizes Democrats more than abortion (except maybe for former President Trump). Whenever abortion is on the ballot, Democrats turn out to vote in big numbers. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, ballot measures that guarantee abortion rights have been approved everywhere they’ve shown up — and that includes in red states like Kansas and Kentucky.

And this week, several abortion decisions provided more ammo for Democrats fighting the abortion battle. On Tuesday, a ruling by the Supreme Court in Arizona revived a 160-year-old near-total ban on abortion in a state that is one of a handful of key battlegrounds in the presidential election. As one news report put it, Arizona “is now effectively ground zero for abortion politics.”

One week earlier, the Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling that clears the way for a six-week ban on abortion, a law Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the GOP-majority Legislature. In a separate decision, the court approved a ballot initiative that, if passed, would undo the six-week ban and restore broad abortion rights in the state.

Florida has been reliably red in recent years. But with abortion on the ballot, it just might be in play this year.

And Trump this week posted a video on his social media site in which he said it should be up to each individual state to decide what to do about abortion. That’s what trying to have it both ways looks like when you’re running for president. He didn’t come out in favor of a national ban on abortion, something that anti-abortion advocates in his base wanted. But he didn’t come out against such a ban, either.

Former Vice President Mike Pence called Trump’s decision to leave abortion up to the states “a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called Trump’s latest position “deeply” disappointing. 

Journalists, many of whom echo positions put out by their like-minded friends in the Democratic Party, won’t let Trump get away with his leave-it-up-to-the-states middle ground. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to tell voters where he stands on a federal ban on abortion. He’s also going to have to explain his position on near-total bans on abortion in Republican-controlled states.

Given a choice between getting a root canal or having to talk about abortion in a presidential election year, I’m guessing Republicans would opt for the root canal.

And Democrats are hoping Trump’s decision not to support a federal ban on abortion will cost him votes with those anti-abortion conservative Republicans who feel betrayed. But I suspect that’s wishful thinking. They’ll never vote for President Biden — and his liberal views on abortion are only one of a whole bunch of reasons — and they won’t sit home on Election Day, either. They know that not voting is tantamount to a vote for Biden.

Democrats are already running on abortion, telling voters that Republicans want to ban abortion everywhere in the United States, that the GOP is the radical party when it comes to abortion. Radical is a word we’re going to hear a lot between now and Election Day.

But Democrats, by and large, get a pass on where they stand, beyond their usual response that abortion is a matter to be worked out between a woman and her doctor. There’s no room for a politician, they like to say, in that small room where doctors talk to their patients. And liberals in the media pretty much let it go at that.

But does that mean Democrats want no legal limits on abortion access? Would they say nine months is too late for a woman to decide to have an abortion, absent a serious health issue for the mother? How about eight months, or seven or six? Where do Democrats draw the line?

Republicans understand that when the subject is abortion, it’s a plus for Democrats. So this week wasn’t a good one for Republicans. There wasn’t much they could do when those court decisions in Arizona and Florida came out, but Trump probably should have played golf instead of doing that video on abortion this week. When it comes to abortion, less is more as far as Republicans are concerned. 

We can be sure of two things as the campaign moves on toward Nov. 5. One is that whenever abortion comes up, Republicans will want to change the subject. The other thing we know for sure is that Democrats won’t let them.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him @BernardGoldberg.