Trump: women need to be under constant surveillance to ensure the state can violently coerce them to carry pregnancies to term
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The press would love to be able to portray Trump as an abortion moderate — helps the horse race, and there’s nothing that shows Seriousness like arbitrarily denying abortions to some women as a compromise for its own sake — but he keep accidentally telling the truth:
As part of an extensive interview with Time Magazine, former President Donald Trump expanded on what abortion access would look like in the United States in a potential second term. Trump laid out a dystopian vision where pregnant women could be placed under state surveillance and then subjected to criminal punishment for any transgressions.
During an April 12 interview, Trump was asked if he was “comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned.” Trump responded that, if he were to win the presidential election, “states are going to make that decision” and “states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
Trump’s sanctioning of state-imposed punishment on women who receive abortions is consistent with the views he expressed during an MSNBC town hall in March 2016, during his first run for president.
“Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no?” host Chris Matthews asked.
“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump replied.
“For the woman?”
“Yes,” Trump said.
Following a firestorm of criticism, Trump released a statement reversing his position. If “any state were permitted to ban abortion,” Trump said, “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.” But now, eight years later, Trump has flipped his position again. He now believes states can hold women legally responsible for receiving abortions.
This is no longer a hypothetical question. State legislators in Louisiana introduced a bill that would make a woman receiving an abortion subject to “the same criminal consequences as one who drowns her baby.” In 2022, a Texas woman was charged with murder for inducing her own abortion, although the charges were later dropped.
In the Time interview, Trump was also asked if “states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban.” Trump said he believed some states “might do that” and, if he were president, the decision on whether to institute surveillance of pregnant women would be up to “the individual states.”
Analog surveillance of abortion clinics has been used by abortion opponents for years to restrict and discourage abortion access. But digital surveillance deployed by the state — including data from period tracking apps, search engines, and license plates — could make these tactics far more powerful. Poland instituted a near-total abortion ban in 2021 and then created a database to track pregnancies. The move has “terrified” Polish women, according to abortion rights advocates in the country.
Trump has also dodged questions about whether he would attempt to impose a federal ban on abortion pills. During his interview with Time, Trump said that he’d make a statement in two weeks on whether his administration would be enforcing the Comstock Act – an 1873 law that makes it illegal to mail “obscene, lewd or lascivious” materials. But 18 days have passed since the interview, and Trump has still not said what he plans to do.
He’ll reveal his plan to make medication abortions available the same day he releases his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.
Anyway, if you think that every pregnant woman should be under constant state monitoring, definitely vote a straight Republican ticket.