The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Amy Fried is a retired political science professor at the University of Maine. Her views are her own and do not represent those of any group with which she is affiliated.
There’s no doubt that Donald Trump had a major role in ending a federal right to abortion. The three Supreme Court justices he nominated were part of the 6-3 majority in the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, fulfilling a long-standing social conservative goal.
It’s also clear that Trump’s proud of this, touting it many times, including in his debate with President Joe Biden and the one he recently had with Vice President Kamala Harris.
And, frankly, all that is perfectly reasonable. Getting rid of a nearly half century right to legal abortion, for which the Supreme Court allowed some limitations, is an historic step. Whether you like or dislike the decision, Trump bragging reflects reality.
But, along with Trump’s self-congratulation are contentions that are blatantly fictional. Some are seriously condescending toward women.
First, Trump’s repeatedly said “everyone wanted” Roe overturned, including “Every Democrat, every Republican” and “every legal scholar.”
This is just detached from reality. As one law professor put it, “Any claim that all legal scholars wanted Roe overturned is mind-numbingly false.”
Moreover, most Americans backed Roe and were unhappy that it was overturned. More than two-thirds opposed the decision.
Since the decision, polling shows an increase in support for legal abortion. However, there’s certainly not unanimous support from either political party. A Pew poll earlier this year found that 41 percent of Republicans (and 85 percent of Democrats) thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Also, while falsely saying everyone is pleased with Roe being overturned, Trump also claims that restrictive state laws are fine because they allow abortions to protect pregnant women. That’s what he said in his debate with Harris.
But in fact, medical exemptions in states with abortion bans have not worked well. As a review of these laws by the Kaiser Family Foundation concluded, life exceptions have kept physicians from practicing “evidence based medicine,” have “led physicians to delay providing miscarriage management care” and “exclude many health conditions” pregnant women face.
Last week we learned of two Georgia women, Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, “who died after being unable to get either a legal abortion or timely medical care.” Analyses concluded that both deaths were preventable.
In Texas, which has a very strict abortion ban, deaths of women during or soon after pregnancies, have climbed 56 percent from 2019 to 2022, far more than nationally.
These women leave behind loved ones — spouses, parents and children.
Harris called out Trump for his false portrayal about Americans’ take on abortion laws. She is right that “the pregnant woman being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that.”
And now Trump has taken a tack that’s incredibly patronizing.
Trump is telling women that they won’t care about abortion if he’s elected, writing (in all caps on his Truth Social site), “YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES.”
Yes, Trump has actually told women that they’ll stop caring about whether they can have an abortion if he becomes president again.
Evidently he thinks it won’t be important to women if they can have an abortion so they can finish their education or otherwise control their lives and the decision and timing of having children, or if they are in an abusive relationship, or if they have a health condition that makes continuing a pregnancy dangerous, or if the fetus has a serious abnormality.
Women won’t be interested in all that. No, instead, in Trump’s words, if he wins, women will be “HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE!” and abortion rights won’t matter to them.
Trump’s statements portray himself as the hero who overturned Roe, something, he says, all wanted, and will fully fulfill women who lost this federal right.
We’re all used to Trump’s bragging, I guess. But we should never accept this degree of delusion and condescension. Americans can select Harris, who grasps reality, respects women and, supporting personal freedom, has abortion policies most voters want.
