Washington Watch
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Election
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Former First Lady defended women’s “individual freedoms”
by
Associated Press
October 4, 2024
Melania Trump revealed her support for abortion rights Thursday ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, exposing a stark contrast with her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on the crucial election issue.
In a video posted to her X account Thursday morning, the former first lady defended women’s “individual freedoms” to do what they want with their bodies — a position at odds with much of the Republican Party and her own husband, who has struggled to find a consistent message on abortion while wedged between anti-abortion supporters within his base and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” Melania Trump said in the video. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?”
The video appears to confirm excerpts of her self-titled memoir reported by The Guardian on Wednesday.
Melania Trump has rarely publicly expressed her personal political views and has been largely absent from the campaign trail. But in her memoir, set to be released publicly next Tuesday, she argues that the decision to end a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her doctor, “free from any intervention of pressure from the government,” according to the published excerpts.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she wrote, according to The Guardian. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
Melania Trump wrote that she has “carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
These views contrast sharply with the GOP’s anti-abortion platform and with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and boasted about returning the abortion question to the states. Democrats have blamed the former president for the severe deterioration of reproductive rights as abortion bans were implemented in large swaths of the country following the overturning of the landmark case, which had granted a constitutional right to abortion.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he had talked to his wife about the book and told her to “go with your heart.”
“We spoke about it. And I said, you have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe,” he told Fox News, adding, “There are some people that are very, very far right on the issue, meaning without exceptions, and then there are other people that view it a little bit differently than that.”
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign noted Trump’s role in ending Roe v. Wade in a statement reacting to Melania Trump’s defense of abortion rights.
“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he has explicitly said so after previously refusing to answer questions on the subject. Abortion rights advocates are skeptical, however, saying Trump cannot be trusted not to restrict reproductive rights.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the memoir is another example of “the Trumps playing voters like a fiddle.”
“As president, (Trump) made it his mission to get Roe v. Wade overturned,” she said in a statement. “Melania stood by him, never once publicly disavowing his actions until weeks before an election where our bodies are again on the ballot and they are losing voters to this issue. Read between the lines.”
Democratic strategist Brittany Crampsie called the memoir’s release a “clear attempt to appeal to more moderate voters and to moderate JD Vance’s very clearly extreme views on the issue.” But she was skeptical that the move would work in favor of Trump, saying his shifting views “have already confused voters and sowed distrust.”
Melania Trump also defended abortions later in pregnancy, asserting that “most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother.”
“These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor,” she wrote.
These views appear diametrically opposed to her husband, who has often parroted misinformation about abortions later in pregnancy, falsely claiming that Democrats support abortion “after birth,” though infanticide is outlawed in every state.
The national abortion group SBA Pro-Life America denounced the former first lady’s views on abortion, including her comments on abortion later in pregnancy, but said their “priority is to defeat Kamala Harris.”
“Women with unplanned pregnancies are crying out for more resources, not more abortions,” the organization’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. “We must have compassion for them and for babies in the womb who suffer from brutal abortions.”
Mary Ruth Ziegler, JD, a law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law who focuses on reproductive rights law and history, said it is unclear if the memoir’s release so close to the election was an attempt to help Donald Trump. But she did note that Melania Trump’s split from Trump on the issue is not uncommon historically.
There is “a pretty deep history of first ladies being more supportive of abortion rights than their husbands,” including Betty Ford, a vocal abortion rights supporter and the wife of former President Gerald Ford, Ziegler said.
Donald Trump promoted his wife’s book at a September rally in New York, calling on supporters to “go out and get her book.” It is unclear if the former president has read the book.
“Go out and buy it,” he told the crowd. “It’s great. And if she says bad things about me, I’ll call you all up, and I’ll say, ‘Don’t buy it.'”
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