FACT CHECK: Americans Know Trump’s Abortion Bans Have Led to Delayed Emergency Medical Care and Preventable Deaths
September 21, 2024
In response to Donald Trump’s dangerous, out-of-touch, and offensive claim that women are happy with his extreme abortion bans, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:
“Let’s be clear: women who are suffering from severe health complications and increased mortality rates are not ‘happy’ or ‘healthy’ in the wake of Trump’s abortion bans. Women are ‘thinking about abortion’ because Donald Trump ripped away our basic rights and paved the way for extreme bans that are delaying emergency care for millions and leading to preventable deaths. Now, the Trump-Vance ticket wants to ban abortion nationwide — with or without Congress — through their careless and cruel Project 2025 agenda, forcing every woman in America to contend with the horrific tragedies we’re already seeing happen in states across the country. The American people won’t stand for it, and will remember it when they vote this November.”
Donald Trump claims that thanks to him, women will be “happy, healthy, confident, and free,” even as his abortion bans across the country have led to delayed emergency medical care and preventable deaths.
Trump: “Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now where it always had to be.”
Trump: “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE”
NBC News: “A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban”
ProPublica: “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.”
“But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state…
“Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed ‘preventable,’ is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days…
“But since abortion was banned or restricted in 22 states over the past two years, women in serious danger have been turned away from emergency rooms and told that they needed to be in more peril before doctors could help. Some have been forced to continue high-risk pregnancies that threatened their lives. Those whose pregnancies weren’t even viable have been told they could return when they were ‘crashing.’”
If given the chance, the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda would ban abortion nationwide.
Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”
Trump: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life. And it’s very important.”
Trump on if he would sign a six-week national abortion ban: “I’m looking at all options.”
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
“During a podcast interview in January 2022, then-candidate JD Vance said he ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’ and was ‘sympathetic’ to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion.”
Newsweek: “J.D. Vance Backs ‘National Standard’ for Abortions”
Daily Beast: “J.D. Vance suggested he would support prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape and incest—and dismissed those catalysts as ‘inconvenient.’”
New Republic: “On January 20, 2025, conservatives plan to resurrect a 150-year-old defunct law to ban abortion across the nation. This is not a secret plan—far from it. It’s part of the 180-Day Playbook produced by Project 2025, detailing priorities for an incoming conservative president on day one. These 900 pages lay out a Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist…
“The playbook says the president should enforce a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, which right-wing groups see as a way to ban abortion nationally because it outlaws the use of the mail for the purposes of sending or receiving any object that could be used for an abortion.”
Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”
Axios: “[Project 2025] is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”
REMINDER: Trump “proudly” overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for extreme abortion bans across the country — something his extreme anti-choice running mate JD Vance has celebrated.
Reuters: “Iowa, like other Republican-controlled states, moved to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of … Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it. … Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it, and we did something that was a miracle.”
Trump: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”
Vance: “I think that what I really think on – so first of all, the Dobbs decision, everybody knows, overruled Roe v. Wade – I think that was the right decision.”
Rolling Stone: “Trump Claims Credit for All Abortion Bans”
Trump campaign radio ad: “And Trump nominated conservative judges, leading to Roe v. Wade being overturned.”
Trump celebrated states enacting draconian abortion bans across the country as “working very brilliantly” and said he’d allow states to punish women who get an abortion.
Trump: “We broke Roe v. Wade and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly … But they’re working, and it’s working the way it’s supposed to.”
Trump: “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, and in this case, the law of the state.”
Interviewer: “Are you comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned?”
[…]
Trump: “Again, that’s going to be—I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
[…]
Interviewer: “Prosecuting women for getting abortions after the ban. But are you comfortable with it?”
Trump: “The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”
REALITY CHECK: Trump and Vance’s anti-freedom agenda to rip away reproductive rights is wildly unpopular.
USA Today: “Americans overwhelmingly oppose the next goal of many anti-abortion activists, to enact a federal law banning abortion nationwide. By 80%-14%, those surveyed opposed that idea, including 65% of Republicans and 83% of independents.”
Axios: “Record share of U.S. voters back abortion rights and will vote on it: Gallup”
NBC News: “Abortion rights have won in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned”
Axios: “Most Americans support abortion access one year after Roe v. Wade: poll”
CNN Poll: “About two-thirds (65%) oppose the 2022 Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and 34% approve, numbers that have remained effectively unchanged in CNN’s polling across the nearly two years since the ruling. Those who strongly disapprove of the decision continue to outnumber those who strongly approve by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
“A 69% majority who disapprove of overturning Roe, including 82% of those who strongly disapprove, say that federal politicians should work to pass laws ensuring national abortion access.”
Axios: “There’s widespread support for letting women obtain drugs for medication abortion from their doctor or a clinic, with 72% supporting — including half of Republicans.”