After new reporting revealed a dramatic rise in pregnant women dying under Texas’ abortion ban, JD Vance is doubling down on the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda by fundraising with an anti-choice extremist in Texas. In response, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement: 

“While women across Texas are dying under a draconian abortion ban made possible by Donald Trump, JD Vance is cozying up to an anti-choice extremist who attacked those standing up for reproductive rights as ‘satanic, evil, and crude.’ There is only one ticket that will protect our freedoms, and that’s Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The American people will stop the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda and will not let them take their dangerous abortion bans nationwide.” 

JD Vance is attending a fundraiser tonight hosted by anti-choice extremist Barry Smitherman, who praised a draconian abortion ban in Texas and attacked the legislation’s opponents as “satanic, evil, and crude.”

Texas Tribune: “In a recent speech to an anti-abortion group on the economic impact of terminating pregnancies, Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, a Republican candidate for attorney general, said he believed many unborn babies ‘would have voted Republican’ …

“And he praised the recent passage of abortion restrictions by the Texas Legislature. Smitherman described proponents of the legislation as ‘civil and polite, but persistent,’ and characterized their opponents as ‘satanic, evil and crude.’”

Donald Trump “proudly” overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for extreme abortion bans across the country, including allowing Texas’ draconian trigger law to take effect.

Texas Tribune: “U.S. Supreme Court rules there’s no right to abortion, setting up Texas ban”

Teen Vogue: “Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Women Denied Abortions Despite Pregnancy Complications”

Washington Post: “Infant death rate spiked in Texas after restrictive abortion law, study finds” 

“The law was implemented some nine months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Researchers warn the findings may foreshadow changes in other states that now ban abortion in all or most instances.

“Infant deaths from fetal abnormalities, the leading cause of death for babies under a year of age, rose by 22.9 percent in Texas in 2022 but fell by 3.1 percent for the rest of the country, the study found. Infant deaths from unintentional injuries also increased by 20.7 percent in Texas in the same period, compared to 1.1 percent nationally.”

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.”

New York Times: 22 states across the country currently have abortion bans.

TRUMP DID THIS: Reporting shows that abortion bans across the country — which Trump said are “working very brilliantly” — delaying emergency medical care and leading to “preventable” deaths.

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.’”

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, Vance, and MAGA Republicans are pushing their extreme anti-choice Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion nationwide — with or without Congress — and are promising anti-choice extremists will “always have a seat” at their table.

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.” 

Sean Hannity, Fox News: “So you completely agree, are in full, complete agreement with President Trump?”

JD Vance: “My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward.”

Vance, to anti-choice extremists: “Cultural conservatives… will always have a seat at the table in the Republican Party of this president and of this leadership…”

Rolling Stone: “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”

“[Project 2025] explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion. That law, the Comstock Act, is viewed as a de facto federal abortion ban by reproductive rights advocates and anti-abortion activists alike…

“The attacks on mifepristone and resurrection of Comstock stand out as particularly harmful proposals, but they are only two of the dozens of ways the Republicans behind Project 2025 envision restricting access to abortion and contraception if they win the White House next year. Elsewhere in the document, there are proposals to eliminate the morning-after pill from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate under the rationale that it is a ‘potential abortifacient.’”

Axios: “This 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.’”

Politico: “Organizations including Heritage, former Vice President Mike Pence’s group Advancing American Freedom, and the Southern Baptist Convention’s public advocacy-focused Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission have worked behind the scenes over the last few weeks to distribute talking points, circulate policy recommendations and educate Republican officials and their staff about their ethical concerns with how IVF is commonly practiced in the United States.”

Vance’s anti-choice record includes wanting abortion to be “illegal nationally,” celebrating Trump’s overturning of Roe, attacking exceptions for rape and incest, and more.

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.’”

Vice: “JD Vance Compared Abortion to Slavery”

The Hill: “During his campaign for Senate, Vance applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and supported Texas’s ban on abortion, which does not allow exceptions other than cases where the mother’s life is at risk.  

“‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ he said in 2021 when asked whether abortion laws should allow for exceptions for rape and incest.” 

JD 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.”

Vance: “The Supreme Court’s decision [to overturn Roe v. Wade] was a victory… We’re united in our gratitude and admiration for these devoted defenders of the unborn and for the judges, justices, and especially President Trump, whose commitment to defending the law and the constitution allowed this breakthrough after over 50 years.”

NBC News: “Senate Republicans block Democratic bill codifying Roe v. Wade abortion protections”

“Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation led by Democrats to revive the protections of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.”

Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.

REALITY CHECK: Attacks on reproductive rights, like Trump and Vance’s anti-choice Project 2025 agenda to rip away reproductive freedoms, are 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: “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.”