Donald Trump said “it’s a beautiful thing to watch” states enact different abortion restrictions during a Fox News interview on Wednesday, during which he also repeated several lies about abortion policy.
The former president and presumptive GOP presidential nominee spoke with Sean Hannity, whose questions focused on several issues that will be central in the upcoming presidential election, including abortion.
Trump repeated the lie that “everyone” — including legal scholars on both sides of the aisle — have wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade since the 1973 ruling was handed down.
He bragged about his efforts to end the right to an abortion by appointing the three conservative Supreme Court Justices that ultimately upended Roe, adding that leaving abortion laws to the states has worked out well.
“Now the states are deciding,” he said. “And by the way, in many cases, like Ohio, it became — if you want to use the word liberal or progressive — it was more liberal or progressive than people would have thought. But the people of Ohio decided. The people of Kansas decided. The people are now deciding.” (Ohio voters approved an amendment last fall protecting abortion access in the state constitution; Kansas voters did the same in 2022.)
“In some cases, they’re going the other direction,” he added. “But the people are deciding and in many ways, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”
Nearly 20 states have severe or near-total abortion bans in place, setting off a crisis of maternal health care for millions across the country. Women have been denied care and left to bleed out in hospital parking lots or were forced to travel out-of-state. Others had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, forcing them to stay with abusive partners or have children they couldn’t afford.
The former president also repeated a myth about abortion care later in pregnancy, telling Hannity that Democrats are OK with abortion in the eighth and ninth months and “even after birth.”
“Everybody knows that in the eighth month and the ninth month and beyond that — hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth,” Trump said. “It’s crazy.”
No state is trying to pass legislation to execute newborn babies, which is homicide.
Over 90% of abortions do happen in the first trimester, but a small portion (somewhere around 1%) happen after 21 weeks.
Unlike what the Republican Party is telling voters, women aren’t just waking up one day, months into being pregnant, and deciding they don’t want to be pregnant anymore. Most people who get abortions later in pregnancy are women with wanted pregnancies who get a fatal fetal diagnosis or people who have been pushed further into their pregnancies due to barriers to abortion care in their home state.
The former president said he does support exceptions to abortion bans for cases of rape, incest and to spare the life of the pregnant person. These exceptions, though, are often used to make extreme laws look more moderate, and don’t often work in practice.
Up until recently, Trump had dodged questions on the issue of abortion likely because it’s been a weak spot for the Republican party. Abortion care has proven to be a powerful campaign weapon for Democrats, including President Joe Biden’s re-election effort.
“Donald Trump is responsible for — and proud of — each and every extreme abortion ban across the country that is ripping away women’s freedoms and putting their lives at risk,” Sarafina Chitika, a senior spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign, told HuffPost. “Just look at what he called ‘a beautiful thing’: women denied care and being turned away from emergency rooms, victims of rape and incest forced to travel hundreds of miles for abortion care, doctors criminalized for providing care to their patients.”
Emilia Rowland, National Press Secretary for the DNC, also criticized Trump for his remarks, listing off some of the scenarios abortion restrictions have caused.
“Donald Trump thinks it’s ‘beautiful’ that a 13-year-old rape victim was forced to carry the pregnancy due to Mississippi’s abortion ban; that a young woman in Texas almost died because doctors were afraid to treat her; and that a Florida woman was turned away from the emergency room and lost roughly half her blood in a single day after experiencing a miscarriage,” Rowland said.
“Anyone who thinks women dying or suffering extreme physical, mental, and emotional harm because they can’t access reproductive health care is a ‘beautiful thing to watch’ is fundamentally unfit to serve.”
Trump’s next speaking appearance will be on Monday at the Danbury Institute, a Christian organization that according to its website, believes “abortion must be ended” and the group “will not rest until it is eradicated entirely.”