The former president celebrated the end of Roe and said it was now a matter of state.
A top Democrat criticized former President Donald Trump on Sunday after he sought to clarify his views on banning abortion as a state issue and said the various local laws were working “very brilliantly.”
“American women are not going to let themselves be ripped off by Donald Trump,” Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith told ABC News “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos, adding, “We know he’s the one responsible for this. that is happening.”
Abortion restrictions have returned to the spotlight after the Arizona Supreme Court last week upheld a near-total ban on abortion dating back to the 1800s, which provides exceptions only if life of the mother is in danger. The decision was welcomed by abortion opponents but condemned by reproductive rights defenders.
Trump said he thought the decision went too far and maintained it “will be taken care of” by state lawmakers. Arizona Republican leaders say they are weighing their options and what their voters want.
As Trump defended his state’s stance on abortion rights as weakening Democrats’ political advantage on the issue, saying he “totally killed it,” Sen. Smith embraced another point of view in “This Week”. Trump has also often touted his role in ending the safeguards of Roe v. Wade regarding abortion access nationwide, Smith noted.
“That’s what caused all this chaos and cruelty,” she said.
“He is responsible for these abortion bans,” she said, “and I think he will be held accountable for them in the November election.”
Smith, who also worked at Planned Parenthood, supports a proposal that would repeal the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that abortion opponents say can be used to limit the sending of abortion medications. On “This Week,” Smith indicated that Comstock could be another front in the fight over the issue.
“We need to pay attention to this and make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect people’s rights to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own lives,” she said.
Pressed by Stephanopoulos on Trump’s view and why that wasn’t enough for him, Smith said women in various states now live with disparate rights.
She recalled Trump’s comments last week that having states handle the problem individually “works the way it’s supposed to.”
“We broke down Roe v. Wade and we did something that no one thought was possible,” Trump said then. “We’ve given it back to the states. And the states are working very brilliantly, in some cases conservative, in other cases non-conservative.”
Smith responded on “This Week”: “Ask a woman in Arizona or Texas if she thinks this works for her. Because, for her, it’s not a political discussion. It’s about her personal life and decisions she can make for herself about her own life.
Currently, 14 states ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy, and two states – Georgia and South Carolina – do not allow abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe decision in 2022 overturned the nation’s right to abortion, Smith was one of more than 20 senators who called on President Joe Biden to use executive action to protect the right to abortion.
On Sunday, she praised him for his support for abortion access, but said the ultimate goal must be to elect more pro-abortion access lawmakers “so we can enroll Roe’s protections into law.”
In light of how important abortion access has become to voters, who have consistently sided with Democrats on the issue, Stephanopoulos asked Smith about general election polls consistently showing that Trump was tied or ahead of the incumbent president.
What matters is the choice people make on the November ballot, Smith argued, adding that “the (choices) couldn’t be clearer.”
“There’s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fighting to protect people’s freedom,” she said, “and Donald Trump who is responsible for taking it away.”
News Source : abcnews.go.com
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