PALM BEACH, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Former President and current Republican White House nominee Donald Trump declined Thursday to answer how he’ll vote as a Florida resident on an upcoming referendum to enshrine a “right” to abortion in the state constitution. For now, he would only predict the amendment would pass and suggested abortion was no longer a significant political issue.
Amendment 4, the so-called “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” states that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” If enacted, it would require abortion to be allowed for any reason before fetal “viability” and render post-“viability” bans effectively meaningless by exempting any abortion that an abortionist claims is for “health” reasons.
The amendment ostensibly says that it “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” But Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has warned that “there’s a difference between consent and notification. Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a condition precedent. They did that because they know going after parents’ rights is a vulnerability.”
Just this week, the pro-life group Vote No on 4 warned that the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “which drafted and defended both Michigan’s amendment and Florida’s Amendment 4, recently filed a lawsuit based on Michigan’s abortion amendment to overturn that law prohibiting public funding of abortion and to compel Michigan to provide taxpayer funding of abortion through Medicaid,” meaning the amendment will be used to do the same in Florida.
Both sides are deeply invested in the outcome of Florida’s abortion battle this fall that could not only erase all of Florida’s current pro-life laws but will either continue or break a trend of pro-life losses at the ballot box since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
DeSantis and pro-lifers across the country have been working to build enough awareness and opposition to keep the amendment from getting the 60% support it needs to pass in November.
But Trump, the leader of the GOP and arguably the most influential Republican in America, has so far refused to share an opinion about it despite the fact that opposing it would not conflict with his current position on abortion: leave legality to be decided by individual states, include exceptions in pro-life laws (the Florida heartbeat law the amendment would validate contains exceptions, and defeating the amendment would merely preserve the legislature’s right to continue making such decisions), and frame Democrats as the “real radicals” for their support of late-term abortion and infanticide.
During a wide-ranging press conference at the 45th president’s Mar-a-Lago resort home, Trump was asked how he would vote on the amendment in his capacity as a resident of the Sunshine State.
“I’m going to actually have a press conference on that at some point in the near future. So I don’t want to tell you now,” Trump replied. “But Florida does have a vote coming up on that and I think probably the vote will go in a little more liberal way than people thought. But I’ll be announcing that at the appropriate time.”
TRUMP: Florida’s vote on the pro-abortion ballot initiative will go “in a little more liberal way than people thought” pic.twitter.com/fkceCxnNsS
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 8, 2024
DONALD TRUMP: “The abortion issue has been taken down many notches. I don’t think it’s a big factor anymore.”
“We brought it back to the states.” pic.twitter.com/6Y4nbhms7m
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) August 8, 2024
“I think that abortion has become much less of an issue. It’s a very I think it’s actually going to be very small issue,” he went on. “I think the abortion issue has been taken down many notches. I don’t think it’s — I don’t think it’s a big factor anymore, really.”
Trump was also asked again about the Biden Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) approval of distributing abortion pills through the mail. He suggested he would prefer a vote be held on the issue but did not rule out executive action on the matter in a possible shift from his June endorsement of the Supreme Court’s decision to let the FDA rule stand.
“You could do things that would supplement. Absolutely,” he said. “And those things are pretty open and humane. But you have to be able to have a vote, and all I want to do is give everybody a vote. There are many things on a humane basis that you can do outside of that.”
The Florida chapter of the ACLU seized on Trump’s prediction, telling him “thanks for the vote of confidence!”
Bigly huge, if true.
Former President Trump believes Amendment 4, to protect abortion from government interference, will pass!
Thanks for the vote of confidence! Vote yes on 4! https://t.co/wlKxrx5Klw
— ACLU of Florida (@ACLUFL) August 8, 2024
Since 2022, Trump has staked out a middle ground on abortion that closes the door on banning abortion nationally in favor of relegating future abortion battles to the states while expressing indifference to what policies states ultimately adopt except to occasionally chide pro-life actions he deems too “harsh.” Last week, he took credit for making the GOP “much less radical” on the issue.
Last month, at its 2024 nominating convention, the GOP adopted a dramatically shortened platform drafted and promoted by Trump surrogates, which among other changes cut the party’s longstanding support for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and a federal law extending equal protection to preborn babies in favor of leaving abortion policy to individual states; it also endorsed birth control (many common methods of which function as abortifacients) and embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization.
Trump’s declaration that a strong, consistent pro-life stance is “radical” contrasts sharply with the generally pro-life record he committed to in exchange for pro-life support in 2016, and is more in line with his “pro-choice” past as a celebrity businessman.
National polling aggregations by RealClearPolitics and RaceToTheWH currently indicate that Vice President Kamala Harris has narrowly overtaken Trump in both national polling and Electoral College projections since replacing President Joe Biden as Democrats’ presumptive nominee, although it remains to be seen if her choosing for her running mate radically-left-wing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who faces a scandal over past misrepresentations of his military service, swings the race back in Trump’s favor.