Trump says he will vote against Florida amendment enshrining abortion rights

[August 31, 2024]  (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Friday he would vote against an amendment in his home state of Florida that would enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution and overturn a current six-week abortion ban.

Trump made the comments to Fox News, a day after he caused confusion when he seemed to suggest in an interview with NBC News that he would vote in favor of the amendment.

The amendment is strongly opposed by the anti-abortion groups that have backed his campaign in the Nov. 5 election against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

"I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks," Trump said, adding he also believed the proposed amendment was too permissive.

"So I'll be voting no for that reason," said Trump, who has also indicated the matter should be decided by individual states.

Harris said the former president brags about his role in overturning the constitutional protection for abortion, adding he will vote to uphold a ban "so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant."

"When I’m president and Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, I will proudly sign it into law. The choice in this election is clear," she said in a statement.

Abortion has become a key issue ahead of the election with pro-abortion rights contributions increasing in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

IVF fertility treatments have also been pushed into the spotlight since an Alabama court ruled earlier this year that frozen embryos were people. The state's governor later signed a law aimed at protecting the treatment.

Trump, who Democrats have painted as a threat to women's rights, said on Thursday that, if elected, he would require government or insurance companies to pay for IVF fertility treatments.

However, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, on Friday dismissed that offer as unbelievable.

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, U.S., August 23, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo

Walz told guests at a campaign fundraiser in the Washington suburb of Bethesda that he and his wife, Gwen, briefly contemplated changing their talking points on the issue, given Trump's comments, but changed their minds.

“Look, women don’t trust them. They don’t trust women, so why the hell would women trust them? No one’s believing that,” Walz told about 150 campaign contributors.

Gwen Walz did not mention Trump's latest comments in her introduction of her husband, but said the overall issue of fertility treatments was very personal for her family, having used them to conceive their two children, Hope and Gus.

"If Trump had his way, I would never have become a mom,” Gwen Walz said. “That's a decision that he was trying to make for me and for other women, and if Vance had his way, well, that would make me a second class.”

The comment on Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance appeared to reference his 2021 comment about Democrats without biological children as "childless cat women."

Opinion polls show Trump has lost ground with women voters since Harris became the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 5 election. Harris led Trump by 49% to 36%, or 13 percentage points, among women voters in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday, compared to her 9-point lead in polls conducted in July.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Andrea Shalal; editing by Jasper Ward and Chris Reese)

[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.