Several have helped defend their state’s abortion restrictions in court and some have been involved in cases with national impact, including on access to medication abortion. While Trump has said issues related to abortion should be left to the states, the nominees, with lifetime appointments, would be in position to roll back abortion rights long after Trump leaves the White House. Trump has repeatedly shifted his messaging on abortion, often giving contradictory or vague answers.

In the years before his most recent presidential campaign, Trump had voiced support for a federal ban on abortion on or after 20 weeks in pregnancy, and said he might support a national ban around 15 weeks. He later settled on messaging that decisions about abortion access should be left to the states. Throughout his campaign, Trump has alternated between taking credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and striking a more neutral tone. That’s been an effort to navigate the political divide between his base of anti-abortion supporters and the broader public, which largely supports access to abortion. One Trump nominee called abortion a “barbaric practice” while another referred to himself as a “zealot” for the anti-abortion movement. A nominee from Tennessee said abortion deserves special scrutiny because “this is the only medical procedure that terminates a life”. (Jamaica Gleaner)