Former President Donald Trump has declared victory in the 2024 presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris, taking the stage in the early hours of Wednesday morning after news outlets projected him to win at least 270 votes in the Electoral College. Newsmax has also declared Trump to be the “first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote.” The last was George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004. At the same time, news outlets project that the U.S. Senate will now be under GOP control, for the first time in four years.
“Every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you. And with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America. That’s what we have to have,” Trump said in his victory speech.
Trump previously served as president from 2017-2021, and instituted numerous pro-life initiatives. The most notable of these was nominating pro-life justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. In June of 2022, these three justices joined the majority in overturning Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision. Additionally, during his first four years as presiden, the Trump administration issued a rule for Title X funding that mandated abortion services be separate from family planning services. He also not only reinstated, but expanded, the Mexico City Policy, which keeps the United States from funding international organizations that promote abortion. One of the last things he did during his previous administration was to declare January 22, 2021 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Trump supported the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal dollars from funding abortion; the Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved millions of lives.
READ: Trump says he’ll get jailed pro-lifers ‘back to their families’ on his ‘first day’ in office
Yet during his latest presidential campaign, Trump has walked back many of his previous pro-life views, seemingly believing that de-emphasizing protections for preborn human beings is a better election strategy. This has brought criticism from many in the pro-life movement, including Live Action founder and president Lila Rose. “It’s very clear that Trump is less pro-abortion than Kamala Harris,” she previously told the BBC. “But our movement’s goal is not just to accept whatever the least worst candidate is and show up for them. Our goal is to help candidates who are going to be fighters for the pre-born.”
Despite the rhetoric in the Harris campaign attempting to blame Trump for states’ pro-life legislation, Trump himself said he would veto any attempts at restricting abortion on the federal level, and also originally came out against Florida’s law protecting preborn children from abortion after six weeks gestation before appearing to change his mind. He has criticized some laws protecting preborn children across the country as being “too tough.”
Trump has also began to make other claims with which some in the pro-life movement are uncomfortable, like claiming to be the “father of IVF” — reproductive technology that is extremely controversial, even among pro-lifers — and saying he would require both insurance companies and the government to pay for it.
