(Washington) Donald Trump’s main Republican rivals for the 2024 presidential election put forward their uncompromising positions on abortion on Friday, seeking to place themselves at the forefront of a debate that the ex-president and favorite is accused of elude.
Almost a year to the day after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down federal abortion rights protections, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, second in the polls but 30 points behind Donald Trump, welcomed the a restrictive law passed by his State.
PHOTO ALEX BRANDON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former United States President Donald Trump
And former Vice President Mike Pence urged his competitors to support the principle of a federal law that would limit the time limits for abortions across the country.
Mr. DeSantis assured that Florida had succeeded in “promoting a culture of life” with its law prohibiting abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy (even if this one has not yet entered into force).
“It was the right thing to do, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” the governor said at the “Road to Majority” conference, which brings together 3,000 evangelical conservatives in Washington.
A thinly veiled jab at Donald Trump, who considers the religious right crucial to his victory in 2016 and remains so to his current ambitions to return to the White House, but criticized the Florida law as too harsh.
Mr. Pence, a distant third according to opinion polls, for his part told the public that “abortion law in the United States (was) more aligned with China and North Korea than with Western countries. “.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS MAGANA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former United States Vice President Mike Pence
“So I want to say it from the bottom of my heart. Every Republican presidential candidate should support a 15-week abortion ban as a national minimum rule,” he added.
“Sacredness”
Donald Trump has delighted conservatives by appointing three justices to the Supreme Court. The temple of law returned on June 24, 2022 to the famous Roe v. Wade, who since 1973 guaranteed a federal right to abortion.
But anti-abortion activists are stunned that Mr. Trump refuses to publicly support a nationwide abortion ban, even as he brags about his role in changing the Supreme Court’s position.
Mr. Trump, who is due to speak at the conference on Saturday, also warned against a tendency to go too far to the right and suggested that anti-abortion activists were responsible for Republicans’ lackluster results in the last election. mid-term.
“Some (Republicans) who will speak on this same platform will say that […] nothing should be done at the federal level,” Mr. Pence said, in an allusion to Mr. Trump’s criticism.
“But let me say it from the bottom of my heart: the […] life is the cause of our time. And we cannot rest until we put the sanctity of life back at the center of American law in every state in this country,” he asserted — the word “life” is the leitmotif of anti-abortion activists.
The “Road to Majority” conference brings together all the major Republican candidates on the same stage for the first time, two months before the first Republican presidential debate scheduled for August 23 in Milwaukee.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez there gave “thank goodness” for the Supreme Court decision, while former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson pledged to sign a federal ban.
As for the ex-governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, who openly criticizes Donald Trump, he was on the tightrope with this crowd acquired by the ex-president. He was booed when he claimed the latter had “disappointed” Republicans.