Former President Donald Trump, who is embroiled in a series of legal and political fights, is getting his latest challenge from a core Republican constituency: life anti-abortion activists.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an influential conservative group with more than 1 million members, threatened Trump – and any 2024 candidate – that they will lose the organization’s support unless they back a national ban on abortion.
“We will oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard to stop painful late-term abortions while allowing states to enact further protections,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.
Her comments came after the Trump campaign told The Washington Post he believes the Supreme Court got it right when it said access to abortion should be decided at the state level.
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“President Trump’s assertion that the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion solely to the states is a completely inaccurate reading of the Dobbs decision and is a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold,” Dannenfelser said. “Life is a matter of human rights, not states’ rights.”
She said the only way to save unborn children is through federal protections.
“Holding to the position that it is exclusively up to the states is an abdication of responsibility by anyone elected to federal office,” Dannenfelser said. “This holds especially true for the president, more than any other federal official, because he or she has a responsibility to forge national consensus and progress on the most egregious human rights violation of our time.”
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Candy Woodall is a Congress reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at cwoodall@usatoday.com or on Twitter at @candynotcandace.