Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, confirmed to reporters Saturday that former President Donald Trump is “consistent” in his views on defunding Planned Parenthood.
A journalist asked Vance, R-Ohio, whether a future Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health care group that has garnered opposition from many conservatives for its pro-abortion-rights positions.
“On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance said after Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view.”
In 2021, 93.5% of abortions were done at or before 13 weeks’ gestation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this year. About 5.7% of abortions were done between 14 and 20 weeks, and 0.9% were performed at or beyond 21 weeks.
The Trump campaign and Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to requests for further comment Sunday night.
Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, blasted Vance’s comments, saying in a statement that “a second Trump term is too big a risk for American women and their families.”
“The only way to stop an unchecked Trump and his MAGA allies from ripping away freedoms from American women is to elect Vice President Harris, who will defend women’s access to health care and reproductive freedom,” Hitt continued.
Democrats have frequently highlighted Trump’s comments about abortion, asserting that he would work to ban it.
In response, Trump has tried to present a softened stance toward abortion, saying in a social media post Tuesday that he would veto a federal abortion ban.
And former first lady Melania Trump reportedly discussed her receptiveness to abortion rights in her coming memoir, with The Guardian reporting that she wrote, “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?”
“A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she reportedly continued. NBC News has not independently verified the contents of the book, which has not yet been released.
Trump said last week in a Fox News interview that he and his wife “spoke about it, and I said, ‘You have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe.'”
An NBC News poll from September indicated that 54% of registered voters think Harris would be better at dealing with the issue of abortion, while 33% selected Trump.
Vance acknowledged voters’ comparative lack of trust in Republicans on abortion at last week’s vice presidential debate.
“I think that what I take from that as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue, where they, frankly, just don’t trust us,” Vance said.
While Trump has attempted to move toward the center on the issue on the campaign trail ahead of the November election, his administration took several steps to limit access to the procedure.
He has praised the three Supreme Court nominees he appointed to the high court for voting to overrule Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for the procedure.
“After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump posted last year on Truth Social, a sentiment he has echoed on the campaign trail.
In 2019, Planned Parenthood withdrew from Title X, a government family planning program, after the Trump administration passed a rule forbidding clinics participating in the program from providing abortion provider referrals.
Planned Parenthood was already prevented from using federal funds for abortions, though anti-abortion-rights groups have argued that it is impossible for the government to verify that the funding for other services does not help subsidize abortion services.
President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s rule, allowing clinics that provide abortion referrals to once again receive federal funds.
In 2016, then-candidate Trump said in a debate that he would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, saying he would “defund it because I’m pro-life.”
