President Biden ripped former President Trump over abortion on Wednesday, the same day a draconian ban went into effect in Florida.
Biden derided his White House rival for giving his blessing to Republican-run states that have enacted ever-stricter restrictions on abortion since the conservative Supreme Court rolled back the Roe v. Wade decision.
“There seems to be no limit to how invasive Trump would let states be,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter. “This is a decision that should be left to a woman and her doctor.”
“The government should stay out of people’s lives,” the president added.
Biden spoke a day after Trump sought to pass the buck to states and dodged key questions on abortion in a wide-ranging new interview.
Trump flatly refused to disclose his views on a conservative-backed effort to ban medication abortion or how he will vote in an abortion-rights constitutional amendment that will be on the fall ballot in his home state of Florida, among other key issues.
Florida’s strict new ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people know a they are pregnant, officially went into effect Wednesday, although the state’s previous 24-hour waiting period meant the procedure was effectively taken off the table a day earlier.
The Florida Supreme Court recently upheld the new ban, which replaces a less-strict law that permitted abortion until later in pregnancy.
The Sunshine State’s top court also agreed that the abortion-rights amendment could appear on the November ballot. If a required 60% of voters support it, Florida would be compelled to permit abortions up to when the fetus is viable, the same standard that existed nationwide for nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade.
Trump takes credit for appointing the conservative Supreme Court justices who engineered the reversal of Roe. But he says he’s not going to take stands on the laws in individual states, even though he previously denounced the Florida ban.
Democrats say they hold a major political advantage on the issue, a claim that is backed up by election results in several states where abortion rights has been on the ballot and also the midterms congressional election where an expected GOP red wave fizzled.
They vow to force Trump to take political ownership over the bans enacted by his right-wing allies, especially in battleground states like Arizona that will likely determine the winner of the coming vote.
“There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump,” Biden said.
