Former President Trump said Friday he will vote against an upcoming ballot measure in Florida that would bar future state legislation limiting abortion access and overturn the state’s current abortion ban.
Trump, who has insisted that the state’s current law banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy is too strict, told Fox News’s Bryan Llenas he would vote no on the measure despite those concerns.
“I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks. I’ve disagreed with that right from the early primaries when I heard about it, I disagreed with it,” the former president said. “At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation.”
“All of that stuff is unacceptable, so I will be voting no for that reason,” he added.
Abortion is currently banned in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they’re pregnant. Exceptions for rape and incest are included in the law.
Trump in a pair of interviews earlier this week said the six-week ban is “too short,” signaling he may vote in favor of the ballot measure to overturn the Florida law. But his campaign rushed to clarify Thursday that he was still undecided in the face of backlash from anti-abortion activists.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, thanked Trump on Friday for opposing the Florida measure.
“We thank President Trump for shedding light on how extreme this measure is and call on all Republican leaders in Florida to follow the president’s example,” she said in a statement.
Reproductive rights have been front and center politically in the two years since the conservative Supreme Court majority ended Roe v. Wade, with some states enshrining abortion rights and others enacting restrictive laws that effectively ban the procedure.
Trump has simultaneously bragged about securing the end of Roe v. Wade and taken the position that abortion policy should be left up to the states through legislation or ballot referendums as GOP-led states enact restrictive policies. But that has prompted attacks, including from some on the right who expressed disappointment the former president was not embracing a federal minimum standard for abortion.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed Democrats support abortion up until birth and are more radical on the issue. But such procedures are extremely rare, and abortions happening after birth are already illegal.
At the same time, Trump has sought to court voters who may be concerned about restrictions on reproductive health care. He posted on Truth Social last week that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights,” and this week he pledged that his administration would cover the costs of in vitro fertilization treatments, though it’s unclear how the government would pay for it.
The Harris-Walz campaign has sought to capitalize on this momentum, consistently labeling state-level abortion bans as “Trump’s abortion bans.”
