For many former President Donald Trump's conservative Christian supporters, the highlight of his four years in office was appointing three judges to the nation's highest court, paving the way for the ruling in Roe v. Wade to be overturned.
The next step, the pro-life camp reasoned, was a nationwide abortion ban.
But on Monday Trump threw a monkey wrench into those plans. And some on the right aren't happy.
The former president had supported a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. But now he says the matter should be left up to "My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint," Trump said Monday in a video on his Truth Social platform. "The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state."
The former president added, "many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others and that's what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people."
The reaction was swift. Among those critical of Trump's new position were his former Vice President Mike Pence, who took to social media later Monday and called it "a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020." Even reliable Trump sycophant U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham told the HuffPost, "It's a political position that I think doesn't make sense if you're pro-life, because pro-life is about the well-being of the unborn child."
In our view, Trump is absolutely right on this. We are pro-life, but the question of whether abortion should be legal and under what conditions was, until Roe v. Wade, a state issue. And that is where it should remain now that Roe v. Wade is no more.