Democrats are attacking Senator J D Vance over abortion, saying previous remarks by Donald Trump’s new vice-presidential nominee shows the Republicans will pursue more curbs on abortion if they win in November.
Vance has taken a tougher line on abortion than his predecessor who is against abortion but supports exceptions in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. Vance once suggested that rape and incest victims should be compelled to keep their pregnancies but later said he backs such exclusions.
Trump’s choice of Vance as his number two gave Biden’s campaign room for maneuver on Republican positions regarding women’s reproductive rights and a chance to use it as an incentive issue, one that could attract independent voters and boost turnout in the Nov. 5 election. Most Americans generally tend to support abortions according to most opinion polls.
Going after Vance’s previously stated abortion views could help Democrats raise more doubts about where Trump stands, said Christopher Devine, co-author of a book about running mates and a professor of political science at Dayton University in Ohio.
“Voters are still trying to figure out what are Donald Trump’s actual views,” Devine said.
The Republican Party had included opposition to federal bans on abortions just like they were adopted at its national convention last month however; this position was criticised by anti-abortion activists who would have preferred stronger language. Vance said this week he agrees with that approach.
The Democratic National Committee launched 16 billboards and a mobile billboard in Milwaukee area targeting reproductive rights after Vance got the vice presidential nod on Monday
It read “Ban Abortion, Punish Women.” Another billboard read “Trump-Vance Project 2025”, referring to conservative policy agenda called Project 2025.
“JD Vance is an anti-choice politician whose views on reproductive freedom and women’s rights would take us back decades,” Quentin Fulks told reporters principal deputy campaign manager for Biden-Harris campaign
At present, Biden’s campaign is using Vance’s past comments to generate money arguing that Trump is not talking enough about the abortion restrictions which are not popular with voters, in order to win this election. The campaign asserts that if President Trump is re-elected and Republicans take hold of both houses of Congress, then he would most probably back any restrictive measure passed by lawmakers.
“Trump-Vance” campaign said Democrats were lying about Vance’s record on abortion. “He has repeatedly made clear that he supports reasonable exceptions,” said campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, calling it a “smear tactics.”
Republicans at their convention interviewed by Reuters on Tuesday expressed doubt that Democrats could make any progress among voters by focusing on Vance’s stand on abortion
Ten women attending said in interviews they backed Trump’s running mate and weren’t bothered by Vance’s earlier statements about abortion even if they didn’t entirely agree with them.
“It’s not that bad to me,” said Julie Spokes, a conference participant from Rocky Wall Texas, on abortion as an election issue. “I think people have bigger problems than that.”
Vance’s opinions
In his first interview on Monday after securing the VP nod, Vance said Trump’s positions on abortion will be the dominant views within the GOP.
“So you must believe in reasonable exceptions because Americans want it there,” Vance said in a Fox News interview. “And you need to let individual states decide this.”
This is different from his 2021 comments about which Biden-Harris’ campaign quickly seized upon where he emphasized a baby’s right to life when asked whether anti-abortion laws should include an exception for victims of rape and incest.
“You cannot fight fire with fire,” he said during an interview with Spectrum News 1 “Dear Ohio” podcast. “At the end of day we are talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?”
He went on: “not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child into being but whether there should be children who live though their birth circumstances might be inconvenient or problematic to the society,” he added.
When he ran for Senate in 2022, Vance argued for some exceptions to abortion such as in cases like a 10 year old Ohio rape victim who had to go all the way to Indiana for an abortion although he stopped short of endorsing full exceptions for rape victims.
Similarly, in 2022 he also called Lindsey Graham’s national abortion bill that would allow for such situations as rape, incest or when mothers’ lives are at risk ‘totally reasonable’. He asserted those exemptions again last year on CNN.
After Ohio voters placed access to abortions into the constitution of their state in November 2023, Vance wrote in an X post that described the vote as a “gut punch” for abortion opponents.
Dawn Marquardt, a delegate from Wyoming agrees with Trump on abortion. Her support of Vance or the ticket is not tempered by his more conservative views in 2021.
“I like that he’s younger, very conservative and not afraid to stand up to the news media and express his mind,” she said.
