'Fundamental right': Melania Trump breaks with husband on key campaign issue

Former first lady Melania Trump is trying to stake out daylight between her husband on abortion in a new memoir, reported The Guardian on Wednesday.

“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she wrote in the book set to be published a month before the election. “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes."

“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life,” she continued.

It is rare for Melania Trump, who is hardly even seen in public these days, to make any political statement, let alone one that sets her somewhat apart from former President Donald Trump.

ALSO READ: The menstrual police are coming: Inside the GOP's plan for total control over women

The former president appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who ruled to overturn the Roe v. Wade standard, giving state governments — many of which are aggressively gerrymandered to the point of voters having limited representation — free reign to enact total abortion bans, at least some of which appear to be responsible for the deaths of women.

Trump's own position on the issue is tougher to pin down; in his initial campaign, he suggested, then quickly walked back, that there should be some form of "punishment" for women who have abortions. He now boasts, falsely, that "everyone" in both parties wanted Roe to be overturned, and has criticized six-week abortion bans as too harsh, but is also voting against an amendment in Florida to roll back a six-week ban there, and offers inconsistent answers on how abortion should be regulated federally.

His running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has previously expressed a desire for a total ban on abortion nationwide, but more recently has tried to downplay that possibility.