To the editor:
After delighting his evangelical base by nominating justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, Trump angered them during the GOP primary. He criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban signed into law by a primary challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump said, “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.” He lost some anti-abortion votes but he handily defeated DeSantis anyway.
The Trump campaign knows that three-quarters of the electorate favors some form of legal abortion. That’s why his running mate, J.D. Vance, recently said that Trump promised to veto a national abortion ban, the ultimate objective of abortion opponents.
Only days later, Trump was asked about a proposed state constitutional ballot amendment in Florida repealing the six-week ban.
Trump, a Florida resident, said “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. You need more time than six weeks. I’ve disagreed with that right from the early primaries. When I heard about it, I disagreed with it.”
The anti-abortion organizations had enough of this. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler Jr. said Trump’s comments “seem almost calculated to alienate pro-life voters.”
The editor of the conservative National Review wrote an article entitled, “Trump’s Abandonment of Pro-Lifers Is Complete.”
His anxious campaign staff scrambled to somehow interpret Trump’s repeated opposition into support for Florida’s six-week ban. He suddenly announced that he now supports Amendment Four.
All is forgiven … right?
Not quite. After repeatedly bragging about overturning Roe, Trump recently said “I’d be great for reproductive rights,” a position that abortion opponents have long insisted is a moral abomination.
Do these opponents realize that, along with his wives, former vice president, mistresses, former cabinet members, former GOP House speakers, the GOP Senate majority leader, his “fixer,” many contractors, NATO, Ukraine, former Trump University students, et.al., they’ve also been betrayed?
Probably not. Trump supporters are tenacious. Consider: They adamantly opposed Obamacare and called socialized medicine Marxist. Many agreed with Alabama’s Supreme Court, which ruled that embryos are “unborn children,” suspending in-vitro fertilization.
But, recognizing his polling deficit, on Aug. 29 Trump said, “Under the Trump administration your government will pay or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment.”
Huh? Single-payer, universal coverage for an elective medical procedure that costs tens of thousands of dollars? Mandating private medical insurance coverage — isn’t that the essence of Obamacare? And doesn’t IVF routinely destroy unused embryos, the “unborn children”?
Maybe his base will rationalize all that and remain loyal. Many know that Trump probably doesn’t know IVF from DEI, and who can really trust what he says? What an irrational way to vote for president — but it’s their right.
Frank Pagano
Jay
