The Supreme Court’s decision to allow access to widely available abortion pills has frustrated anti-abortion activists, but Republicans have been able to sidestep a potentially damaging issue in the midst of a fierce presidential election.
Medication abortion remains widely available: A series of surveys have shown that a majority of Americans support access to medication abortion, but public opinion is divided on whether abortion should be available without a prescription.
A ruling limiting access to the drug would give Democrats a new tool to attack their opponents on an issue that is politically damaging to Republican politicians.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade In 2022, Republican candidates are struggling to reconcile the party’s decades-long opposition to abortion rights with the issue’s changing political realities.
Donald J. Trump has refused to state his position on abortion pills, promising in April that he would announce a policy on the issue “within the next week.”
On Thursday, his campaign tried to move past the issue and return attention to Biden.
“The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously 9-0. The matter is settled,” said Daniel Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “This election is about righting the weaknesses, failures and wrongdoings of the Biden crime family.”
Speaking with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill after the decision, Trump said Republicans needed to improve their messaging on the issue. He urged the party to avoid any discussion of a specific number of weeks for the ban and instead leave the issue to voters, according to a person who was there.
But the next president, through agencies like the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, would have the power to regulate or criminalize the drug nationwide.
Trump allies and officials who served in his administration have proposed enacting the long-abandoned Comstock Act from 1873 to make it a crime to transport any items used to perform an abortion, including abortion pills.
Biden’s campaign supporters said on a conference call with reporters that Trump would issue a nationwide ban on medication abortions by executive order, and noted that allies have introduced policy proposals to overturn the FDA’s approval of medication abortions. Aides said Biden plans to raise the issue in the first presidential debate later this month to contrast his support for abortion rights with Trump’s position that states should decide policy.
“Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork for a nationwide ban on medication abortions,” said Mini Timmarage, CEO of the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All. She blamed the former president for appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion.
The ruling is unlikely to end anti-abortion efforts to restrict access to abortion drugs: Missouri, Kansas and Idaho, states with Republican attorneys general, remain parties to the lower court cases and could seek to reopen them as new plaintiffs.
Maggie Haberman Contributed report.
