Donald Trump gives mixed signals on Florida abortion vote

Campaign also unveils expansive proposal to support IVF in bid to allay voter fears of threats to fertility care

Donald Trump arrives for a town hall meeting in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that he would support a ballot measure that would roll back a six-week abortion ban in Florida, but then his campaign scrambled to walk it back, in his latest halting attempt to try to find a middle ground on the issue.

Seeking to further blunt Democrats’ advantage with women, the Republican presidential nominee also outlined an expansive proposal to provide federal funding for in-vitro fertilisation or force insurers to pay for the procedure.

Mr Trump said a six-week abortion ban in Florida was too ­restrictive and did not give women enough time to access the procedure. A measure on the ballot in November in his adopted home state would protect abortion ­access through foetal viability, or about halfway through a typical pregnancy, effectively invalidating the six-week ban.

“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he told NBC. Later on Thursday a spokeswoman said Mr Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida”.

The former president’s comments stirred outrage and confusion among anti-abortion activists, who form an important part of the Republican base. Many initially interpreted him as saying he plans to vote for the Florida ballot measure but later said he ­appeared to be uncommitted.

“What should the pro-life movement do when the RNC and the formerly pro-life presidential candidate abandons the pro-life position? Elections are about the FUTURE, not the past,” said Lila Rose, president of Live Action.

Mr Trump once boasted of his role in overturning Roe v Wade – having appointed three of the ­Supreme Court judges who voted to overturn the landmark decision – but has expressed an increasingly nuanced view of abortion rights in an attempt to neutralise an issue that has been one of Republicans’ biggest political liabilities over the past two years. He has said he believes the abortion issue should now be decided at the state level. “My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights, ” he said recently.

Campaigning in Georgia on Thursday, Democrat nominee Kamala Harris repeated her ­assertion that Mr Trump would seek a national ban on abortion. Mr Trump says he has no plans to sign one, but in leaving the issue to states about 18 have enacted bans or restrictive laws.

A spokeswoman for the Harris campaign said, “Because Trump overturned Roe v Wade, IVF is ­already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”

Mr Trump’s running mate, senator JD Vance, said on NBC on Sunday that he could “absolutely commit” that Mr Trump wouldn’t seek a national ban. Asked whether Mr Trump would veto such a ban, Senator Vance said, “I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would.” Democrats have sought to paint a future Trump ­administration as a threat to IVF, which is broadly popular. The issue flared nationally after an Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this year that briefly led clinics in the state to stop providing care.

Mr Trump said at campaign events in Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday that if he won a second term his administration would provide federal financial support or mandate that insurance companies cover IVF treatments.

He would let parents deduct newborn expenses from their taxes, aiming to offset some of the costs associated with parenting and competing with a recent Democratic proposal.

Earlier this month, Ms Harris announced a different benefit aimed at new parents, offering a $US6000 refundable child tax credit for newborns, along with other expansions of the credit for older children. Senator Vance floated a $US5000 child tax credit but Mr Trump hadn’t expressed support for that and offered the deduction idea on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal