Reality Check: JD Vance Says He Wants to Make Abortion “Illegal Nationally” and Has Attacked Exceptions for Rape and Incest
October 1, 2024
Reminder: No matter what Vance says, Project 2025 is an “undeniably Trump-driven operation” with deep ties to the Trump-Vance ticket.
FACT: JD Vance’s anti-choice record includes wanting abortion to be “illegal nationally,” attacking exceptions for rape and incest, comparing abortion to slavery, 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.”
Vance: “I am 100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured. Eliminating abortion is first and foremost about protecting the unborn, but it’s also about making our society more pro-child and pro-family. The historic Dobbs decision puts this new era of society into motion, one that prioritizes family and the sanctity of all life.”
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”
FACT: Vance has repeatedly BAILED on protecting reproductive rights.
Ohio Capital Journal: “U.S. Senate GOP prevents contraception access bill from moving ahead”
“Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance didn’t vote.”
Independent: “JD Vance didn’t even show up to vote on [IVF protections].”
Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post: “Vance won’t be at today’s Senate vote…”
The Hill: “Senate Republicans block legislation to codify IVF access”
Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.
Vanity Fair: “On Wednesday, Senate Republicans are expected to object to Tammy Duckworth’s Right to Build Families Act, because, surprise: They don’t actually care about families and aren’t ‘pro-life.’
“‘It’s idiotic for us to take the bait,’ Senator JD Vance told Politico, as though the measure were some kind of political trap. (He also noted that he had not actually read the bill yet.)”
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.
FACT: Vance, Donald Trump, and their Project 2025 allies are pushing a dangerous Project 2025 agenda that would ban abortion nationwide, threaten access to IVF and contraception, and rip away reproductive freedoms.
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: “There has to be some form of punishment [for women who have an abortion].”
Barbara Barr, WGAL: “There are ads running that say that you would support certain states with bans monitoring a woman’s pregnancy.”
Trump: “Well that would be up to the states, again. They will make a decision as to how they do it.”
Washington Post: “Vance urged DOJ to enforce Comstock Act, crack down on abortion pills”
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.”
Politico: “Anti-abortion advocates worked for five decades to topple Roe v. Wade. They’re now laying the groundwork for a yearslong fight to curb in vitro fertilization.
“Since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have been strategizing how to convince not just GOP officials but evangelicals broadly that they should have serious moral concerns about fertility treatments like IVF and that access to them should be curtailed.”
Media Matters: “The Heritage Foundation quietly released draconian new IVF policy recommendations for the next GOP president”
“Heritage has been a staunchly anti-IVF voice, supporting Alabama’s controversial Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos cultivated through IVF treatment have the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying embryos.”
The 19th: “RNC approves platform that would give rights to fetuses, endangering abortion, IVF”
“Fetal personhood is widely seen as being in conflict with in vitro fertilization (IVF), which creates embryos outside of the uterus that are later implanted. Fetal personhood bestows the same rights currently reserved for people to embryos from the moment of fertilization.”
Reproductive Freedom for All: “The extensive mandate calls to gut reproductive freedom, including effectively banning medication abortion, ending access to emergency abortion care, attacking contraception, deploying fetal personhood, and undermining IVF in federal policy…
“Project 2025 includes personhood language and policies that propagate the belief that life begins at conception—which could have devastating impacts should it be put into law. This so-called “personhood” language could ban not only abortion but also some forms of birth control and assisted fertility treatments like IVF.”
The Nation: “Project 2025 Has Bad Medicine for HHS”
“And by declaring that life begins at conception, his manifesto appears to commit HHS to finding ways to outlaw IVF, which relies on generating multiple embryos, most of which are not implanted.”
Rolling Stone: “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”
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.”
FACT: Vance celebrated when Trump “proudly” overturned Roe v. Wade and made cruel abortion bans across the country possible.
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.”
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.
Fox News: “Trump says he’s ‘proud to be the most pro-life president’ in US history on anniversary of Roe v. Wade overturn”
FACT: Attacks on reproductive freedom, like Trump and Vance’s anti-choice Project 2025 agenda, 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: “Most Americans support abortion access one year after Roe v. Wade: poll”