President Donald Trump has tried to ignore a top issue among his base: abortion. But now that's backfiring — and could risk further fracturing his MAGA coalition and losing support from anti-abortion activists, an analyst noted on Tuesday.
The Bulwark's Andrew Egger referred to it as Trump's "lose lose abortion dilemma" as Trump, "who has never cared personally about abortion bans, functionally cut the pro-life movement loose during his 2024 campaign and has more or less ignored the issue since his re-election, while Democrats have had their hands full opposing the things Trump is doing right now."
While Democrats pushed back on the end of Roe v. Wade and used it as a main policy point throughout the 2022 and 2024 elections, Trump has steered clear of discussing the topic, despite the mounting pushback among red states that have actively banned abortions are trying to sue to end mail abortion drugs — specifically mifepristone, which is one of the two drugs used together to induce abortion.
And last week, an appeals court in New Orleans ruled unanimously that the FDA's authorization of mifepristone by mail violated Louisiana's right to regulate abortion. The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily halted the decision to allow appeals. Mifepristone manufacturers argue the ruling would cause "immediate chaos," as the policy has been in effect for years. However, the conservative Supreme Court, which delivered the landmark Dobbs decision, may sympathize with the Louisiana court's argument that the FDA policy facilitates abortions illegal under state law.
"Reproductive-rights groups see this as a nightmare scenario," Egger writes. "Ironically, so does President Trump. His administration has been doing everything it can to kick the can down the road while keeping the mifepristone status quo frozen quietly in place."
"Trump’s political bind here is obvious," Egger explained. "He sees abortion policy as political deadweight, a loser of an issue with an electorate that he’s in no position to press at the moment. But it also happens still to be the central issue for the social conservatives who still constitute a non-trivial portion of his base. Any action he or his government might take on the matter would infuriate some group of voters that he can ill afford to infuriate. But his attempts to slow-walk the process are no longer working, either."