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Trump and Harris’ views on abortion and IVF access, explained
Washington — Abortion is one of the issues that could drive voters’ decisions in the November election, the first presidential contest held since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago and paved the way for 22 states to restrict access to the procedure. Going into the 2024 election, the two presidential nominees, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, have talked about their views of and stances on abortion and and what the future might hold for abortion access if elected.
Democrats are hoping the issue of abortion access will galvanize voters to elect Harris, while Republicans have sought to frame the issue as one best left to the states, while facing questions about whether a federal abortion ban would be on the table if former President Donald Trump were elected to a second term.
An August CBS News poll found that 60% of voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and among women likely voters who want abortion to be legal, 76% support Harris.
Here is where Trump and Harris stand on abortion.
Donald Trump’s stance on abortion
Trump has throughout the campaign had shifting views on abortion, frustrating social conservatives and anti-abortion rights groups that are pushing for a nationwide ban. The Republican nominee has repeatedly taken credit for the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and touted that three of the justices he appointed to the high court voted to unwind the constitutional right to abortion.
He has said the court’s landmark decision means the issue is now left up to voters in the states.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” he said in a video posted to social media in April.
Trump has stopped short of backing a federal abortion ban, but said during a March radio interview that “people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that.”
Still, as Democrats, including Harris, have sought to tie Trump and Republicans to abortion restrictions enacted in 22 states after Roe was reversed, the former president has attempted to counter their attacks.
“My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” he declared on social media on Aug. 23, the morning after Harris delivered a speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination that claimed Trump’s second-term agenda includes limiting access to birth control, outlawing medication abortion and banning abortion nationwide.
The former president has also criticized some of the most restrictive state laws on abortion — namely a six-week ban in place in Florida, where he lives — and said he favors exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. The former president called Florida’s ban a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
He reiterated in an interview with NBC News in September that six weeks is “too short” and said he is “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”
Trump’s comments earned him swift backlash from conservatives, who criticized him for supporting a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution that is on the November ballot. The measure would prohibit laws that restrict abortion before fetal viability, generally considered to be between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Trump quickly backtracked amid the fallout and said he would be voting “no” on the abortion amendment, which, if defeated in November, would leave Florida’s six-week ban in place.
Kamala Harris’ stance on abortion
Harris has made abortion rights a focal point of her campaign and has worked to connect abortion restrictions enacted in more than 20 states to the Republican nominee, calling them “Trump abortion bans” in speeches from the trail.
In her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention accepting the party’s presidential nominee, the vice president pledged to sign into law legislation that restores the federal right to abortion — if such a bill is passed by Congress.
“Ours is a fight for the future and it is a fight for freedom, like the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do,” she said during a campaign event in Savannah.
Harris’ campaign website pledges that if elected president, “she will never allow a national abortion ban to become law. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, she will sign it.”
Access to IVF
Access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) services became a campaign issue after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos created during the IVF process could be considered children. The decision threatened the availability of IVF services in Alabama and thrust access to fertility treatments into the national conversation, including among the presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s stance on IVF
Trump announced last month a new plan that would require the federal government to pay for IVF treatments or mandate insurance companies cover costs associated with IVF, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per cycle.
Kamala Harris’ stance on IVF
Harris, though, has pinned the blame for any threats to fertility treatments on Trump, calling him the “architect of this entire crisis.” The vice president said the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling is a “direct result” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe.
Harris has repeatedly said she supports a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and family-planning, and lamented in her convention speech that since Roe’s reversal, she has heard stories of couples who have had their IVF treatments cut off.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
