Donald Trump announced his opposition to a Florida ballot initiative to restore some abortion access in the state after it enacted a restrictive six-week ban, providing a long-awaited final answer to a question he publicly flip-flopped on.
“I’ll be voting no,” Trump told Fox News on Friday, falsely claiming that Democrat-led states were allowing abortions “in the ninth month” and “after birth,” while adding that he didn’t fully agree with the state’s current six-week ban, which has few exceptions in cases of rape or incest, requiring additional legal and medical documentation.
The comments were somewhat of a reversal from a Thursday statement on the initiative, in which he seemed to endorse the idea that the state’s current abortion ban called for more legal protections for women.
“I’m going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump said when asked about the measure, which would have superseded Governor Ron Desantis’ six-week abortion ban, which went into effect in May.
Trump’s comments sparked massive backlash from the conservative, pro-life factions that form the core of his support, prompting his campaign to issue a sudden backtrack on Thursday evening.
The flip-flop is one of many instances in which Trump has taken opposing positions on abortion policy since he took credit for ending Roe v. Wade. Trump, who takes policy cues from multiple groups calling for a nationwide abortion ban, has at times claimed he would veto such a policy, a promise that garnered scrutiny from pro-choice politicians.
Trump’s Republican National Committee platform, released in July, also included anti-choice “fetal personhood” language, suggesting that the former president supported an abortion ban nationwide.