https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-vance-abortion-ban/680157/?gift=ly-h2TZGdDJyaoFv6n-KaYrJh6Nr3GPgckuYMGGI744&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

«Contrary to the carefully cultivated stereotype, most of the women who seek abortions are already mothers, meaning that many of these women who died left behind children who will never see their mom again.

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Trump and Vance do think Congress should outlaw it too. Vance said as much during the vice-presidential debate with the Democratic nominee, Tim Walz. He simply debuted a new euphemism for it, saying he merely supported a “minimum national standard” [emphasis mine] on abortion. That is just another phrase meaning “abortion ban.”

“I never supported a national ban. I did, during when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard,” Vance told the CBS News moderator Norah O’Donnell.

So first of all, that was a lie. Vance has said not only that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” but also that he would be “sympathetic” to outlawing interstate travel for women seeking abortions. In classic Vance style, he didn’t use the word outlaw, of course; what he instead said was: “some federal response to prevent it from happening.” [emphasis mine] Regardless, the result would be pregnant women dying of septic shock in emergency rooms where doctors refuse to treat them for fear of being prosecuted. Vance has even opposed the narrow exceptions to abortion bans for rape and incest, on the grounds that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

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Already, very few women qualify for such [abortion-ban] exceptions in Republican-controlled states. The exceptions are there to retain popular support for the bans, but so legally vague as to ensure that doctors are afraid to provide lifesaving abortions to patients who need them.

Similarly, Trump’s position on vetoing a specific type of abortion ban has not disturbed anti-abortion activists, because they do not expect such a ban to pass Congress anyway. Instead, they believe that if Trump wins, he will use his executive powers to go around Congress to make abortion effectively inaccessible nationwide, while saying that this does not count as banning abortion.

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Vance did not actually shift his position on abortion. He did try to hide his real views behind a false empathy, saying, “We’ve got to do a better job at winning back people’s trust.” His first attempt at “earning back people’s trust” on abortion was to lie to them about what he believes.»