On the vice presidential debate stage Tuesday night, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio conceded that Republicans needed to do a better job of talking to women about the issue of abortion.
Vance recalled growing up in a working-class family in which he knew “a lot of young women who decided to terminate those pregnancies.” He specifically called out a friend of his who he said aborted a pregnancy that was from an abusive relationship and relayed how difficult it was for her.
“I think that what I take from that as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us,” Vance said. “That’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do. I want us as a Republican Party to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want to support fertility treatments.”
It was a shift from Trump’s comments, in which he has repeatedly tried to hold out the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as something the public had overwhelmingly wanted. Vance’s remarks emerged as he faced off against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in a protracted exchange over abortion, in which at times each man accused the other of taking extreme positions.
Vance did go on to say that he and Trump were consistent that abortion policies should differ from state to state to represent a “diverse” country.
“California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona. And the proper way to handle this, as messy as democracy sometimes is, is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy,” he said.
He also accused Democrats of taking “a very radical pro-abortion stance” and said Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, would force medical providers who opposed abortion to perform them.
During the debate, Trump said on social media that he would veto a federal abortion ban if it made its way to his desk as president, a question he has danced around in recent weeks.
In the post-debate spin room, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told NBC News that he agreed with Vance’s critique of their party on abortion.
“I think it was correct, and I think it was a good answer,” he said. “Listen, abortion is a very personal issue, very personal, very private issue for women all across the country. Our country is no longer a black and white pro-choice, pro-life country. It’s just simply not, not after Roe v Wade.”
Walz accused Trump and Vance of embracing extreme principles and warned that they would institute some kind of registry of pregnancies — which Vance denied — and would create barriers to getting contraception and fertility treatments.
“This issue is what’s on everyone’s mind. Donald Trump put all of this into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe v. Wade,” Walz said.
Walz then scoffed at the notion that a state-by-state solution was somehow accommodating to women. He cited a case in Texas, where a woman had a severe complication at 18 weeks but wasn’t allowed to have an abortion.
“Medical care at that point needs to be decided by the doctor, and that would have been an abortion, but in Texas, that would have put them in legal jeopardy,” Walz said. “She went home, got sepsis, nearly dies, and now she may have difficulty having children.”
Walz supported Harris’ promise to restore protections under Roe v. Wade and reiterated a line he often uses: “Just mind your own business on this.”
