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 After MSNBC broadcast a clip of an interview with Trump, the
billionaire businessman rowed back his remarks, first saying that
the abortion issue should be handled by states and later that
doctors who performed abortions should be the ones held responsible.
"The doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a
woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman," Trump said
in his last statement. "The woman is a victim in this case as is the
life in her womb."
Trump's earlier statements drew heavy fire from abortion rights
supporters and opponents alike.
Abortion has long been a divisive issue in American politics, even
though the procedure was legalized in a Supreme Court ruling more
than 40 years ago. Opposition to abortion has become a central plank
in the platform of most conservative politicians.
Trump has won support from Republican voters for selling himself as
a Washington outsider. But the New York real estate tycoon, who once
supported abortion access, has come under pressure from
conservatives to prove he is truly one of them. At the same time, he
has drawn criticism for comments that offended women and minority
groups.
 "Of course, women shouldn't be punished," rival Republican candidate
John Kasich said on Wednesday, saying he opposed abortion except in
specific cases such as rape.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the third candidate for the
Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election, said Trump had not
thought through the issue. "What's far too often neglected is that
being pro-life is not simply about the unborn child, it's also about
the mother," he said in a statement.
DISCORD AMONG THE REPUBLICANS
Abortion rights supporters were equally incensed.
"What Donald Trump said was outrageous and dangerous. I'm constantly
taken aback at the kinds of things that he advocates for,"
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton told MSNBC. "Once again, he
has showed us who he is."
Dawn Laguens of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political
arm of the women's health group, called Trump "flat-out dangerous"
in a statement.
Abortion was legalized in the United States in 1973, when the
Supreme Court declared that a woman's constitutional right to
privacy protected her decision to end a pregnancy.
In the decades since, there have not been enough votes on the
Supreme Court to reverse the ruling, but numerous states have passed
laws aimed at restricting abortion.
In the MSNBC interview, which is to air in full later on Wednesday,
Trump said if the United States banned abortion, some women would
seek to end pregnancies illegally.
"There has to be some form of punishment," he said. Asked what form
he would advocate, Trump said: "That I don't know."
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Anti-abortion groups said Trump's comments were at odds with their
own stance. "In all the positions the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops has taken around the issue of abortion, they have not called
for punishment of women who've had abortions," said Don Clemmer, a
spokesman for the group.
After the backlash started, Trump's campaign sought to moderate his
view. "This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states
for determination," Trump said in a statement provided to Reuters by
email.
Later, Trump walked back his comments further to say doctors, not
women, should be responsible.
The dust-up was evidence of further discord among Republicans over
Trump's candidacy. On Tuesday, both Trump and Kasich, the Ohio
governor, abandoned pledges to support the party's eventual nominee.
Cruz did not explicitly abandon the pledge but said Trump would not
be the nominee.
Trump had already outraged many women after he said Fox News' Megyn
Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her
wherever" when she asked tough questions in a televised debate,
which many saw as a reference to menstruation.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in March, 66 percent of all likely
women voters said they had an "unfavorable" view of Trump. But among
the 460 Republican women who responded to the poll, 62 percent had a
"favorable" view of him, while 38 percent did not.
In other remarks that have set off furious reactions, Trump has
called illegal immigrants from Mexico criminals and rapists and has
pushed for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
In Wednesday's MSNBC interview, Trump said he would not rule out the
possibility of using nuclear weapons to combat Islamic State
militants. "I would never take any of my cards off the table," he
said.
(Writing by Emily Stephenson; Additional reporting by Megan Cassella
in Washington, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Luciana Lopez and Emily
Flitter in New York and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.;
Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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