By Marlyn Montilla
09 Jul 2024, 09:39 AM EDT
The Republican Party’s electoral programme for a second term for former President Donald Trump excludes references to the US ban on abortion, in an attempt to win votes from moderate or undecided voters.
The 20-point plan, backed by the Republican Committee days before the New York magnate was named its official candidate, includes the largest deportation of migrants in history and the construction of a huge anti-missile shield in the country, but does not propose a veto on abortion.
In the 16-page document, which outlines a roadmap for a future conservative administration, Republicans also suggest they will oppose “late-term abortions” and support access to contraception and fertility treatments.
According to the party’s statement in the document, the Constitution establishes that each of the 50 states of the American nation is free to adopt the legislation it deems necessary to protect the right to “life,” thus consolidating Trump’s vision that abortion should not be regulated at the federal level.
The former president fears that his overly radical stance against abortion could cost him dearly in the November election against his rival, the current head of the White House, Democrat Joe Biden.
The New York businessman has so far ignored the party’s most extremist voices calling for a national ban on abortion and has publicly said that each state should legislate on this issue as it sees fit.
In fact, Trump himself is credited with having the Supreme Court, with three conservative justices nominated by him, deny the federal right to abortion in 2022 and leave it up to each state to decide whether to ban it.
In this sense, Biden’s re-election campaign frequently uses the issue of women’s reproductive rights to rise up against the Republican, whom progressives accuse of having some secret plan to ban abortion in the United States.
Since the Court eliminated the protection implemented since 1973, dozens of states have passed restrictive laws: in 14 states it is impossible to have an abortion or the limit is only six weeks, when many women do not even know they are pregnant, and in another seven they have put obstacles in place and shortened the deadlines.
In most of the 21 states, there are no exceptions for rape or incest and abortions are only allowed when the woman’s life is in danger, a situation that has doctors who perform abortions wary of doing so and can face sentences of up to 99 years in prison.
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