'Reason to be skeptical': Experts warn J.D. Vance's 'backpedaling' on issue is smokescreen

As a vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has heard criticism that his past absolutist anti-abortion positions, from proclaiming he'd like the procedure to be "illegal nationally" to saying incest victims should have to give birth even if it's "inconvenient," are dragging down the ticket.

So he tried to adopt a softer tone on the issue at this week's vice presidential debate, according to a report Friday.

But voters shouldn't be fooled, experts told Salon — even the policy vision Vance described onstage would still be stacked heavily against women's rights over their own bodies.

“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,” said Vance. He even brought up the Ohio abortion rights amendment which was voted down, acknowledging voters in his own state "disagreed" with him.

The trouble is, Northwestern University political science professor Chloe Thurston told Tatyana Tandanpolie, the GOP has already put structural barriers in place to prevent voters actually expressing their preferences on abortion.

"The lower visibility and salience of state-level elections give voters with stricter preferences on abortion policy a leg up in deciding policy because voters who don't pay as much attention skip out on the polls," she said. Voters also have to contend with heavily gerrymandered legislatures and obstacles to creating ballot referenda, or, in some states, no ability to do so at all.

"Instead of saying that they supported, and in Trump's case orchestrated, the overturn of Roe, Trump and Vance are backpedaling by now emphasizing that all they want to do is to give the power back to the states for the states' voters to decide," University of New Mexico political science professor Wendy Hansen wrote, adding that the two are "both working to keep voters that they have alienated by supporting bans on abortions."

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Meanwhile, the GOP's post-Roe regimes — made possible by a Supreme Court majority Trump appointed — are already having deadly consequences, with a young mother, Amber Thurman, dying because a hospital in Georgia was too scared of being prosecuted under abortion laws to treat an infection, despite her pregnancy not even being viable.

And ultimately, experts cautioned Salon, there's not even any indication Trump and Vance would adhere to the few compromises they're pledging if they gain full control of the government.

"Let's just say the House and Senate pass a national abortion ban. Does Donald Trump truly veto that? That seems a stretch," said North Carolina State political science professor Steven Greene. "People have every reason to be skeptical of just how honest Trump and Vance are being with them about where they would take abortion policy."