While Donald Trump is running an anti-abortion presidential campaign and appointed three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, Melania Trump has proudly professed her support for abortion and a woman’s right to choose in her forthcoming memoir, The Guardian is reporting.
The former first lady made the extraordinary declaration in her memoir, “Melania,” which is to be published next Tuesday. Portions of the memoir were obtained by The Guardian.
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the wife of the Republican nominee wrote, amid a presidential campaign in which her husband’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” Melania Trump also wrote. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” Melania Trump continued. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
Melania Trump has not been much of a presence during her husband’s presidential campaign, and she has rarely expressed her political views in public, which makes her pro-choice statements so remarkable, The Guardian reported. Her views put her out of step with the anti-abortion platform of her husband’s Republican party and show her opposition to the deterioration of women’s reproductive rights under him and his MAGA movement.
Trump has tried to take credit for the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and upheld a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, The Guardian said. But he’s also tried to avoid the political backlash the ruling has stoked by saying abortion rights should be decided by the states.
At the presidential debate last month, Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, said, “Understand, if Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban.”
At the debate, Trump tried to sidestep the issue by denying the claims of his running mate, J.D. Vance, who said that former president would veto a federal ban. Trump said it was a “lie” that he would sign such a veto, explaining there was no reason to sign a ban “because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted.”
But on Tuesday night, Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban. While Vance was debating Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, Trump wrote in an all-caps post on social media, “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!)”
But it’s hard to know whether to take Trump at his word on the matter of a national abortion ban, HuffPost reported. In addition to boasting about his role in reversing federal abortion protections, after nominating three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, he also once endorsed punishing women who get abortions with jail time.
Moreover, he has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme anti-abortion advocates in politics, HuffPost said. That includes Vance, who has called for federal restrictions on traveling for abortion care and advocated for the surveillance of women’s menstrual cycles to prevent them from getting abortions.