Trump’s Calculated Ambiguity On Abortion Is Starting To Fall Apart

Donald Trump has said more on abortion in the past few weeks of his presidential campaign than he has in the last two years. And it’s increasingly clear why he has strategically danced around the subject for so long.

ABC moderators and Vice President Kamala Harris are likely to push Trump to clarify his stance on abortion during Tuesday night’s highly anticipated presidential debate. It’s safe to assume he will reiterate his thoughts on abortion later in pregnancy and say something about Democrats murdering newborn babies and botched abortions — common, though completely untrue, talking points for Republicans.

But he could also be pushed to clarify his policy stance about abortion earlier in pregnancy — because lately, he’s been all over the map.

Trump was critical in repealing federal abortion protections. The former president has bragged about it countless times and continues to falsely claim that “everyone” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Now, as the election nears and polls suggest a tightening race, Trump is rapidly trying to change his tune.

Recently, Trump proclaimed that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights” — a sentence that sounds more like a Planned Parenthood press release than something said by a man who once endorsed punishing women who get abortions with jail time.

He has distanced himself from Project 2025 and its wish list of extreme anti-abortion policy proposals, claiming that he hasn’t even read it, though the plan mentions him over 300 times and was created by several of his longtime allies. He has said he won’t enact a national abortion ban if elected and won’t enforce the Comstock Act, a 150-year-old anti-obscenity law that abortion opponents want to use to