Biden campaign: Trump ‘scrambling’ on abortion amid policy announcement

President Joe Biden speaks at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, April 8, 2024. / Credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 8, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign accused the presumptive Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump of “scrambling” on the issue of abortion after Trump announced that he supports states making their own abortion laws.

“Trump is scrambling,” Biden said, according to the campaign statement. “He’s worried that since he’s the one responsible for overturning Roe, the voters will hold him accountable in 2024.”

“Well, I have news for Donald: They will,” the statement continued. “America was built on personal freedom and liberty. So, there is nothing more un-American than having our personal freedoms taken away. And that is what Donald Trump has done.”

These comments from the Biden campaign came shortly after Trump posted a video on Truth Social in which he said “the states will determine [abortion policies] by vote or legislation” and “this is all about the will of the people.” The former president said “now it’s up to the states to do the right thing.”

“Many states will be different,” Trump said. “Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative [policies] than others, and that’s what they will be.”

Trump’s statement also accused the Democratic Party of being extreme on abortion: “[They] are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month.”

Biden calls for legal abortion nationwide

Biden’s statement reaffirmed his administration’s support for codifying into law the abortion rules that were in place under the now-defunct Roe v. Wade ruling. Such a law would prohibit states from enacting most pro-life policies and mandate legal abortion nationwide.

“As a fundamental right, it didn’t matter where you lived,” Biden said. “It was granted to you as an American, not as a resident of any state. Generations of women had come to rely on that right.”

Although Trump has never publicly backed a nationwide ban on abortion, the Biden campaign claimed that Republicans would pass “a national abortion ban” and that “Trump will sign it into law.”

Biden has become a staunch supporter of taxpayer-funded abortion nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In his 2025 budget proposal, Biden asked Congress to enshrine the former abortion standards into law and to repeal the law that prohibits federal agencies from directly funding abortion. He also requested more money for a program that has funneled millions of dollars into Planned Parenthood abortion facilities.

The Biden campaign has run several pro-abortion advertisements during the election that criticized Trump for appointing three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The campaign also promotes federal laws that would block states from enacting pro-life laws.