Tail wagging the dog….
Trump’s pledge to be ‘great for women and their reproductive rights’ angers advocates
Donald Trump attempted to strike a new tone on the issue of abortion this week, saying he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights” — to the frustration of anti-abortion advocates.
The former president invoked the phrase in a post on Truth Social on Friday, reflecting his campaign’s frenzied attempt to reset the narrative in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris and present more moderately on the issue of abortion, which has plagued Republicans electorally since Roe v. Wadewas overturned in 2022.
Democrats frequently use the phrase “reproductive rights” as a stand-in for abortion but also to refer more broadly to a range of medical practices related to child-bearing, such as birth control and in vitro fertilization. Support for reproductive rights, when invoked by Democrats, almost always means support for access to abortion. In contrast, Republicans rarely talk about abortion in that way, and anti-abortion advocates quickly took notice of Trump’s tonal shift.