(LifeSiteNews) — Former President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday he gave his blessing for his wife Melania Trump to endorse a “fundamental right” to abortion in her upcoming memoir, at a time when relations are already strained between the GOP ticket and the party’s pro-life base.
Earlier this week, an advance excerpt of the former First Lady’s book was published, in which she declares that a “woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes. Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.”
Following disapproving reactions from various pro-lifers, Fox News’s Bill Melugin asked the former president about the matter in an interview that aired Thursday.
FOX NEWS: What’s your reaction to Melania championing abortion rights?
TRUMP: We spoke about it and I said you have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. pic.twitter.com/oPXPwbHMxC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 3, 2024
READ: Melania Trump supports abortion, but so has every first lady since Roe v. Wade
“We spoke about it. And I said, you have to write what you believe,” Trump said. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe. She’s very beloved, our former First Lady, I can tell you that.”
“But I said you have to stick with your heart. I’ve said that to everybody, you have to go with your heart,” he went on, echoing a common refrain he has been using in his appeals for rape, incest, and medical exceptions to pro-life laws. “There are some people who are very, very far right on the issue, meaning without exceptions, and then there are other people who view it a little bit differently than that.”
Mrs. Trump’s pro-abortion declaration comes the same week her husband clarified he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it,” and continues a steady transformation of his abortion stance from his 2016 campaign and first term.
Trump now opposes further federal action on abortion, supports letting abortion pills be distributed by mail, and has criticized states for overly “harsh” abortion bans. Through this work, he has taken credit for making the GOP “less radical” on abortion, including by having the national Republican Party platform rewritten to reflect his more liberal position.
Trump’s left-wing turn on abortion has anguished many pro-lifers, who were key to his original 2016 victory, prompting debate among many about whether to vote or abstain in the November election.
At the same time, however, Trump’s differences from Democrats on issues such as “transitioning” gender-confused minors and the Democrats’ comprehensive far-left policy agenda garner him continued support among many conservatives and Republicans.
Trump’s opponent, Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, is running on an absolutist abortion-on-demand platform that includes taxpayer funding of abortion, opposing any and all limits on the practice, signing a law forcing all 50 states to permit abortion again, and most recently abolishing the Senate filibuster to get such a law to her desk. In speeches, she has taken to promoting abortion as a normal procedure to be committed for whatever reason a woman wants, such as disposing of a child that would interfere with her career plans.
Harris currently leads Trump by 2.2 percent in RealClearPolitics’ popular vote polling average and by 3.2 percent to 3.3 percent according to RaceToTheWH (depending on whether former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is counted), but margins remain extremely close in the swing states that will decide the Electoral College outcome.