Republicans flee from abortion restrictions in final weeks of campaign

Candidates ranging from Donald Trump to House hopefuls are seeking to soften, or appear to soften, their hard-line stances.


Antiabortion protesters use bullhorns to counter a gathering of mostly abortion rights advocates in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3, 2022. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

By Ashley Parker
October 4, 2024 at 1:46 p.m. EDT

In the final stretch before Election Day, Republicans are ramping up efforts to distance themselves from the restrictive abortion positions that have defined their party since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade — scrambling to soften, or appear to soften, their hard-line positions.

The group includes former president Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and House members and gubernatorial candidates, and the efforts come as nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

In Tuesday evening’s vice-presidential debate, Vance — who during his 2022 Senate run described himself as “100 percent pro-life” and ran on a platform promising to “end abortion” — said he and Trump were working to earn “the American people’s trust back on this issue” and implied that he supported the decision by an unnamed friend in an abusive relationship to terminate her pregnancy. … “I know she’s watching tonight, and I love you,” he said.

That same evening, Trump — who regularly claims credit for overturning Roe — wrote in an all-caps post on social media that he would veto a federal abortion ban, writing “it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”

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By Ashley Parker
Ashley Parker is Senior National Political Correspondent for The Washington Post. She has been part of three Post teams that won Pulitzer Prizes — two for National Reporting (in 2018 and 2024) and one for Public Service (in 2022). She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times. She is also an on-air contributor to NBC News/MSNBC.follow on X @ashleyrparker