Biden and Democrats have sought to blame Trump for the abortion restrictions because the former president appointed three of the nine justices to the US Supreme Court, where conservatives now have a 6-3 majority.
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All six conservative judges supported the coup Roe vs. Wade, Considering it unconstitutional.
“Across our nation, women are suffering, and let’s be very clear about who is responsible,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last week, standing alongside the president at a rally in Virginia.
“Former President Trump picked three justices to the Supreme Court because he intended to overturn Roe.”
The Supreme Court struck down the law in June 2022 and left it up to the states to determine what access, if any, women can have. Since then, about 14 states have banned abortion almost immediately, most with no exceptions at all.
Five of those 14 states have exceptions for rape, but they also have strict pregnancy duration limits and survivors must report rape to police to obtain abortion services, disenfranchising many women because they are unwilling to report.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks before President Joe Biden at an event on the campus of George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia.credit: AP
During his campaign, Trump sought to balance the legacy of the Supreme Court with the fact that the vast majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in general.
While campaigning for the Republican nomination in recent months, Trump's stance has been less extreme than some of his rivals, and he has at times blamed the anti-abortion movement's extreme policies for the GOP's recent electoral losses.
He also favors exceptions for rape, incest and maternal life and criticized the six-week ban enacted by his former rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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DeSantis withdrew from the race after a disappointing result in the Iowa caucuses, leaving Trump's former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, as his last competitor for the nomination.
Haley attempted to take a more balanced stance on abortion, declaring herself “unapologetically pro-life” while calling for a national consensus on abortion access.
The latest research, based on analysis of multiple data sets, was conducted by Dr. Samuel Dickman, medical director at Planned Parenthood of Montana; Carrie White, expert on reproductive and health policy; and David Himmelstein, professor of public health at the City University of New York.
“In this cross-sectional study, thousands of girls and women in states that banned abortion experienced rape-related pregnancies, but few (if any) obtained legal abortions within the state, suggesting that rape exceptions fail to provide reasonable access to abortion for survivors.”, The authors write.
Pro-life protesters hold a sign during the “March for Life 2020” rally in Washington as Trump became the first US president to attend the event.credit: Bloomberg
“Rape survivors who become pregnant in states that prohibit abortion may seek to self-select an abortion or attempt to travel (often hundreds of miles) to a state where abortion is legal, leaving many with no practical alternative to carry the pregnancy to term.”
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