Melania Trump reveals support for abortion rights in new memoir | Politics

CHICAGO (AP) — Melania Trump revealed her support for abortion rights Thursday forward of the discharge of her upcoming memoir, exposing a stark distinction along with her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on the essential election situation.

In a video posted to her X account Thursday morning, the previous first woman defended ladies’s “individual freedoms” to do what they need with their our bodies — a place at odds with a lot of the Republican Party and her personal husband, who has struggled to discover a constant message on abortion whereas wedged between anti-abortion supporters inside his base and nearly all of Americans who support abortion rights.

“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” Melania Trump mentioned in the video. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?”

The video seems to substantiate excerpts of her self-titled memoir reported by The Guardian on Wednesday.

Melania Trump has hardly ever publicly expressed her private political opinions and has been largely absent from the marketing campaign path. But in her memoir, set to be launched publicly subsequent Tuesday, she argues that the choice to finish a being pregnant needs to be left to a girl and her physician, “free from any intervention of pressure from the government,” in line with the printed excerpts.

“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she wrote, in line with The Guardian. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”

Melania Trump writes that she has “carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

These views distinction sharply with the GOP’s anti-abortion platform and with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit score for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and boasted about returning the abortion query to the states. Democrats have blamed the previous president for the extreme deterioration of reproductive rights as abortion bans have been carried out in giant swaths of the nation following the overturning of the landmark case, which had granted a constitutional proper to abortion.

Donald Trump mentioned Thursday that he had talked to his spouse in regards to the guide and instructed her to “go with your heart.”

“We spoke about it. And I said, you have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe,” he instructed Fox News, including, “There are some people that are very, very far right on the issue, meaning without exceptions, and then there are other people that view it a little bit differently than that.”

Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ marketing campaign famous Trump’s position in ending Roe v. Wade in a press release reacting to Melania Trump’s protection of abortion rights.

“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives,” Harris marketing campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika mentioned in a press release. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday mentioned he would veto a federal abortion ban, the primary time he has explicitly mentioned so after beforehand refusing to reply questions on the topic. Abortion rights advocates are skeptical, nonetheless, saying Trump can't be trusted to not prohibit reproductive rights.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, mentioned the memoir is one other instance of “the Trumps playing voters like a fiddle.”

“As president, (Trump) made it his mission to get Roe v. Wade overturned,” she mentioned in a press release. “Melania stood by him, never once publicly disavowing his actions until weeks before an election where our bodies are again on the ballot and they are losing voters to this issue. Read between the lines.”

Democratic strategist Brittany Crampsie referred to as the memoir’s launch a “clear attempt to appeal to more moderate voters and to moderate JD Vance’s very clearly extreme views on the issue.” But she was skeptical that the transfer would work in favor of Trump, saying his shifting views “have already confused voters and sowed distrust.”

Melania Trump additionally defends abortions later in being pregnant, asserting that “most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother.”

“These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor,” she writes.

These views seem diametrically against her husband, who has typically parroted misinformation about abortions later in being pregnant, falsely claiming that Democrats support abortion “after birth,” although infanticide is outlawed in each state.

The nationwide abortion group SBA Pro-Life America denounced the previous first woman’s views on abortion, together with her feedback on abortion later in being pregnant, however mentioned their “priority is to defeat Kamala Harris.”

“Women with unplanned pregnancies are crying out for more resources, not more abortions,” the group’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser mentioned in a press release. “We must have compassion for them and for babies in the womb who suffer from brutal abortions.”

Mary Ruth Ziegler, a regulation professor on the University of California, Davis School of Law who focuses on reproductive rights regulation and historical past, mentioned it's unclear if the memoir’s launch so near the election was an try to assist Donald Trump. But she did observe that Melania Trump’s break up from Trump on the problem just isn't unusual traditionally.

There is “a pretty deep history of first ladies being more supportive of abortion rights than their husbands,” together with Betty Ford, a vocal abortion rights supporter and the spouse of former President Gerald Ford, Ziegler mentioned.

Donald Trump promoted his spouse’s guide at a September rally in New York, calling on supporters to “go out and get her book.” It is unclear if the previous president has learn the guide.

“Go out and buy it,” he instructed the group. “It’s great. And if she says bad things about me, I’ll call you all up, and I’ll say, ‘Don’t buy it.’”

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