Leaving Abortion to the States Requires Federal Action
Trump would have to undo a series of ‘workaround’ regulations Biden imposed to evade the law.
Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin Wall Street Journal
Leave it to the states. That’s Donald Trump’s new position on abortion. “My view,” he said in an April 8 statement, “is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land—in this case, the law of the state.”
Some pro-life leaders criticized the statement. But setting aside the debate over federal pro-life laws, it’s important to note that Mr. Trump’s “law of the state” position still requires presidential action. That’s because President Biden is using the executive branch unilaterally and unlawfully to impose his radical pro-abortion agenda on the American people, undermining pro-life states’ ability to set their own abortion policies. As a federal judge wrote last year, the Biden administration has “openly stated its intention to operate by fiat to find non-legislative workarounds to Supreme Court dictates,” which amounts to “a breach of constitutional constraints.”
