By The New York Times (U.S.) | Created at 2024-10-03 15:50:01 | Updated at 2024-10-06 01:18:57
2 days ago
As Donald Trump tries to muddy his anti-abortion position, his wife released a video calling “individual freedom” an “essential right that all women possess,” asking, “What does my body, my choice really mean?”
By Katie Rogers
Katie Rogers is a White House reporter who covered the Trump administration and is the author of a book on modern first ladies, including Melania Trump.
- Oct. 3, 2024Updated 11:23 a.m. ET
Melania Trump, the former first lady, said in a video on Thursday that there was “no room for compromise” on a woman’s right to “individual freedom,” a day after a reported excerpt from her coming memoir said she supported abortion rights.
Mrs. Trump’s comments landed as Mr. Trump and his party are trying to soften their opposition to abortion, a key issue threatening his support with women voters and his attempt to return to the White House.
They were released in a promotional video for a new memoir scheduled for release on Tuesday,. Her husband, who opposes federal abortion rights and has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v. Wade, did not immediately comment.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” she said in the video, which was posted to her account on X. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth, individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”
On Wednesday evening, the British news site The Guardian published excerpts from Mrs. Trump’s book, in which she appeared to go a step further than her words in the video: “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
A spokeswoman for Skyhorse Publishing, the publisher of the book, did not respond to a request to confirm the book’s contents or supply an early copy.
Mr. Trump, aware of the political pressure over his position on abortion rights, has gone from crowing over the downfall of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion, to pondering what limits on the procedure he would be willing to accept.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, Republicans have toyed with the idea of national abortion limits even as a number of state ballot measures to protect access to the procedure have succeeded.
And Democrats have seized on the slate of new abortion restrictions in Republican-led states — and the harrowing stories from women who have died or faced life-threatening complications tied to restrictions on health care — as a winning issue ahead of November.
So, in recent months, Mr. Trump has waffled on his views on access to the procedure. In a presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, he declined to say whether he would support a national ban on abortion.
On Wednesday, in an all-capital-letters post on social media, Mr. Trump said: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”
Mr. Trump went on to say he supported exceptions for abortion if a woman had been raped or a victim of incest, or if her life were in danger.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the past decade, she has focused on features about the presidency, the first family, and life in Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More about Katie Rogers
