Despite their unpopularity with the American public, former Republican vice-president and 2024 White House hopeful Mike Pence doubled down Sunday on his hard-line support of staunch abortion restrictions, saying: “We just can’t rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life.”
Pence – in an interview on Fox News Sunday – made clear that he viewed bringing the elimination of abortion “to the center of American law” as both essential and “a winning issue” for the Republican party trying to wrest back control of the Oval Office.
“I’m pro-life, and I don’t apologize for it,” Pence boasted to host Shannon Bream, even though polling shows most Americans favor keeping the termination of pregnancies legal in most cases.
The Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that the US supreme court handed down one year ago Saturday in effect left it up to states to decide whether abortion should be legal within their boundaries. Many states have taken steps to severely limit access to abortion, setting off a seismic shift in how doctors are training to provide reproductive care to how far patients in need of attention must travel.
Pence on Sunday hailed the Dobbs decision as “a historic victory” which sent the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling establishing federal abortion rights “to the ash heap of history”. But he also suggested it didn’t go far enough and reiterated a call he had publicly made days earlier for his fellow Republicans to rally behind setting “a minimum standard” and implementing a nationwide ban on abortions beyond 15 weeks.
The former US congressman, Indiana governor, and vice-president to Donald Trump argued that failing to do so would leave the nation more closely aligned with “western countries in Europe” on the topic of abortion than with North Korea, China and Iran. “I fully support that,” said Pence, a professed evangelical.
Pence’s beliefs on abortion put him at stark odds with Trump, who has signaled that he regards a national abortion ban as a vote-loser which he is unlikely to support.
Many of the other declared candidates for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic presidential incumbent Joe Biden’s re-election campaign have been less frank about their positions on abortion.
Notably, Florida governor Ron DeSantis – the closest challenger to the frontrunner Trump – signed a six-week ban in his state, which pundits predict could be a problem for him in a general showdown with Biden.
Biden’s administration has taken steps to widen access to abortion, and promises to defend such procedures helped Democrats keep a majority in the Senate as well as lose fewer House seats than projected during last year’s midterms.
Pence on Sunday also evaded answering whether he would consider pardoning Trump if he won the 2024 presidency and his ex-boss was convicted of criminal charges pending against him.
“I don’t know why the other people running for president in the Republican primary assume that the president will be found guilty,” Pence said when asked if he would pardon Trump.
Trump is facing federal charges that he improperly stored government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after he and Pence were defeated by the Biden-Kamala Harris ticket in 2020.
Separately, he is also facing state charges in New York over hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels after a sexual encounter that she has described having with Trump. Presidential pardons would not apply to state charges.
The ex-president has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
Trump’s presidency ended with his supporters attacking the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and demanding – among other things – Pence’s execution by hanging. At the time of the attack, the pro-mob Trump incorrectly maintained that Pence could have used his ceremonial role at a joint session of Congress certifying the results of the 2020 election to single-handedly undermine Biden’s victory.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
