Donald Trump, in an Interview, Downplays the Significance of Abortion: 'Not That Big of an Issue'

In a bizarre interview last week, former President Donald Trump insisted abortion is "not that big of an issue" while simultaneously claiming the Republican Party is now the 'party of fertilization'.

His comments revealed a lack of awareness about the intense national debate around abortion rights. Speaking to FOX-2 Detroit after a rally in Saginaw County, Michigan, Trump repeatedly downplayed the significance of abortion access. He said, "I think the abortion issue should be largely taken off the table because the individual states are doing what they're doing."

His remarks contradict the nationwide polling that deemed abortion to be a critical issue for many voters in the 2024 election. In light of the same, President Joe Biden and Democratic candidates have made protecting reproductive rights a central campaign focus.

Meanwhile, after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, Trump stated that it was a positive thing that the court overturned the 50-year-old precedent protecting abortion rights. "For many, many years, people have said we’ve got to bring this back to the states to decide, and that’s now working," he claimed, as per Huff Post.

Subsequently, he delivered a confusing statement that Republicans support in vitro fertilization (IVF) access for women facing infertility. "We want to help the women because they were going to end fertilization, which is where, when the IVF, where women go to the clinics and they get help in having a baby, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing," Trump said. "And we're for it 100%. They tried to say that they weren't for it. They actually weren't for it and aren't for it as much as us, but women see that."

This defense of IVF access seems to stem from an Alabama Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that gave embryos full legal rights, prompting IVF clinics to halt services due to liability concerns.

However, Trump's claim that Democrats oppose IVF is false as it's Republicans who have blocked efforts to enshrine IVF protections into federal law. The former president also repeated the long-debunked claim that Democratic-controlled states allow abortions through the ninth month of pregnancy or even "after the baby is born."

Trump further asserted that "every legal scholar...all over the world" wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, a claim that contradicts the views of the vast majority of constitutional law experts.

While taking credit for demolishing federal abortion protections, the former president also claimed "the people within the states...they seem to be very happy with the way it's working out." This ignored the reality that over half of U.S. states have enacted policies severely restricting or outright banning abortion since last year's Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, as per Michigan Advance.