How the Antiabortion Movement Became a Cause Without a Candidate - WSJ [View all]

A couple of hours after Donald Trump suggested in August that he would vote for a Florida ballot measure to protect abortion rights, a handful of irate antiabortion leaders got on the phone with one of his top advisers, determined to pressure the former president to walk it back. In a tense call, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, laid down her group’s position to the adviser: “This is a line you cannot cross.” She said if Trump voted in favor of such a measure, he would lose social conservative voters in the presidential election. “At that point there would be no difference between him and Kamala,” Hawkins said, referring to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

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The next day, the campaign said Trump, a Florida resident, would in fact oppose the measure.

The victory was limited. Deep fractures have grown between Trump and abortion opponents, who just two years ago were on top of the world after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure. The ruling was the culmination of the movement’s unlikely relationship with Trump. The onetime abortion-rights supporter appointed three conservative justices who helped overturn Roe and was the first sitting president to attend the annual March for Life.

That relationship is now in tatters, and the movement to end abortion in America finds itself struggling not to be written off as a political liability by Trump and the Republican Party, which are facing a public backlash to the rollback of abortion access. Antiabortion groups also have lost seven consecutive ballot referendums and appear on track to lose most of the 10 measures to protect abortion rights that are on state ballots in this election, including in conservative states such as Florida and Missouri.

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Trump publicly blamed abortion restrictions for costing the GOP critical votes in the November 2022 midterms, months after the Supreme Court decision. Democrats retained control of the Senate and performed better than expected in House races. He said Republicans poorly handled the issue in the midterms, and on social media in 2023 he disparaged advocates’ ability to succeed on their agenda. “Pro lifers had absolutely zero status on the subject of abortion until I came along,” Trump wrote. “Before our victory, they had nothing, and they will have nothing again if we don’t win ELECTIONS.”

This year, in an August social-media post, he said his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” It was one of a series of indignities that have left abortion opponents frustrated and scrambling to avoid losing much of the ground they gained. They’re also split on whether to tell their supporters to drop Trump.

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