WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump said Monday that if re-elected, he would work “side by side” with a newly formed religious organization that says abortion is the “greatest atrocity” facing the United States and must be “completely eradicated.”
During a two-minute recording of his speech played at the Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum in Indianapolis, Trump avoided the word “abortion” but said he hoped to protect “innocent life” if re-elected in November.
“We must defend religious freedom, free speech, innocent life and the heritage and tradition that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world,” Trump said. “But now, as you know, we are a nation in decline.”
Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, said he hoped to work with the institute to defend these values.
“These are going to be your years, because you’re going to make a comeback like no other group,” Trump said. “I know what’s happening. I know where you came from and where you’re going. And I’m going to be right there with you.”
Trump also urged the Danbury Institute and church members to vote for him in November’s presidential election, saying President Joe Biden and the Democrats are “against religion.”
Biden-Harris 2024 spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a written statement released before Trump’s message aired that a second term for him “will surely bring even more extreme abortion bans with no exceptions, penalizing women for seeking necessary care, and criminalizing doctors for providing care.”
“Women can and will stop him by re-electing President Biden and Vice President Harris this November,” Chitika wrote.
Abortion position
The Danbury Institute writes on its website that it opposes abortion “from the moment of conception,” “which means that every unborn baby would enjoy the same legal protections as born humans.”
“The intentional, premeditated killing of an unborn child should be treated under the anti-homicide laws already in place,” the website states. “We also support strengthening the foster care system and promoting Christian adoption, working with churches across the country to empower them to care for children who need loving families.”
Elsewhere on the Danbury Institute’s website, the organization states that it believes “the greatest atrocity facing our generation today is the practice of abortion – the sacrifice of children on the altar of the self.”
“Abortion must end,” the website says. “We will not rest until it is completely eradicated.”
The website does not mention whether the organization supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest or the woman’s life, nor does it say whether women who have abortions should be protected from criminal prosecution. The institute did not respond to a request from States Newsroom about whether it supports any or all of those three exceptions.
The institute states on its website that it “does not endorse candidates for public office nor does it participate in political campaign activities. Donations to the Danbury Institute are not used for political campaigns and are made in accordance with IRS regulations for nonprofit organizations.”
Florida minister criticizes abortion letter
Tom Ascol, president of Founders Ministries in Florida, spoke on a panel discussion about the “sanctity of life” at Monday’s event, saying that “abortion is the greatest evil facing this nation in our time.”
Ascol also seemed frustrated by a public letter by dozens of anti-abortion organizations in May 2022 arguing that no law should criminalize women who have an abortion. He took particular offense at the fact that the acting president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission signed the document.
“It saddens me that when there was a bill before the Louisiana Legislature that had a real chance of passing because there were legislators willing to move it forward … 75 pro-life organizations wrote an open letter, including the head of our Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Brent Leatherwood, who signed that letter with his name, saying, ‘We do not believe that any legislature should criminalize abortion in a way that holds those who provide their bodies for an abortion liable,'” Ascol said during the conference.
This letter was published on the same day in 2022 that Louisiana state legislators debated House Bill 813which was on course Criminalizing women who have abortions in addition to the doctors who perform these treatments. The public prosecutor could have charged the women with murder.
Instead decided to revise the wording of the original bill and replace it with another anti-abortion measure that does not impose criminal penalties on women who have an abortion.
Ascol said he believes the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission needs to say publicly whether “the goal is to abolish abortion. And if that’s the case and they’re serious about it, then let’s work together.”
“If we can do that, I think we have an opportunity to build coalitions,” Ascol said. “If we get more of these open letters from so-called pro-life organizations that help block legitimate legislation, I think we’re going to continue to see fragmentation, and that’s understandable.”
Organizations that signed the May 2022 letter included National Right to Life, Susan B. Anthony List and Americans United for Life.
Trump and abortion, contraception
Trump’s comments to the Danbury Institute on Monday did not clear up the confusion created by his comments to news organizations in recent months.
Trump said during an interview In April, TIME magazine reported that his campaign would release a policy in the coming weeks on access to medication abortion, a two-drug treatment approved for pregnancies up to 10 weeks.
“Well, I have an opinion on that, but I’m not going to explain it,” Trump said, according to Transcript of the interview. “I’m not going to say it yet. But I have a pretty clear opinion on it. And I’ll probably publish it over the next week.”
As of Monday, this policy had not yet been published.
Medical abortions, which include mifepristone and misoprostol, account for about 63% of abortions in the United States, according to Data from the Guttmacher Institute.
Hearing of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States Oral statements in a case concerning the operate of mifepristone in delayed March and are expected to release their verdict before July 4.
During an interview In May, Trump hinted in an interview with a Pittsburgh television news station that he might support states restricting or banning access to contraception, but he walked back his comments in a social media post the same day.
“We’re looking into that and I’ll have a policy on that very shortly and I think that’s something you’ll find interesting,” Trump said on KDKA after being asked if he might support restrictions on a person’s right to contraception. “That’s another very interesting issue. But you’ll find it very smart. I think it’s a smart decision, but we’ll be releasing it very soon.”
Trump later posted on social media that he had never advocated and would never advocate “restrictions on birth control or other forms of contraception.”
As of Monday, Trump’s campaign team had not yet released any guidelines on contraception.
US Senate vote on IVF scheduled for this week
Access to reproductive health care, including contraception and assisted reproduction, has become a recurring issue in the U.S. Senate ahead of the November elections, and Democrats are trying to pressure Republicans to take a formal stance on the issue.
The Senate tried to pass laws Last week, the House introduced a bill to protect access to contraception, but the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the chamber voted against moving forward with the bill.
Access to contraception is currently protected by two U.S. Supreme Court cases – Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird – in which the justices ruled that Americans’ privacy rights allow them to make these decisions for themselves.
Democrats and reproductive rights advocates fear the justices could ultimately overturn these two cases in the same way the court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a bill guaranteeing access to in vitro fertilization, but Republican senators are expected to block that bill as well.