Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gestures in the course of the “National Have a good time Life Day Rally” marking the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade’s landmark abortion decision in Washington, D.C., United States, June 24, 2023
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Two 2024 Republican presidential candidates spoke out for their opposition to abortion on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, a call that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Presidential candidate and former vp Mike Pence described last 12 months’s landmark decision as a “historic victory” that condemned Roe v. Wade to “the dustbin of history.”
Pence earlier this week called on all Republican Party candidates to commit to a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks – but said on Sunday it was also essential to “stand with compassion.”
“With 62 million unborn lives lost and almost as many ladies surviving two generations because of this of abortion, I believe we’d like to hold a message of grace, we’d like to hold a message of kindness,” Pence said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “That is how we’ll win hearts and minds. That is rather more essential to me than politics, but I also think it is a winning issue.”
Pence said the national limit of 15 weeks “would put US law on par with most countries in Europe that literally ban abortions after 12 to fifteen weeks.”
His call for tighter restrictions comes whilst recent NBC News nationwide poll showed that 6 out of 10 voters still oppose the Supreme Court’s removal of the country’s abortion law. In line with NBC News, nearly 80% of female voters aged 18-49 participated within the poll, two-thirds of suburban women, 60% of independents, and one-third of dissenting Republican voters.
Pence also said he “strongly supports” Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville’s efforts to withhold military promotions due to Defense Department policies on abortion, including the recent decision to reimburse service members who travel to other states to acquire abortions.
“We simply cannot allow the federal government to directly or not directly subsidize abortion on this country, including the Pentagon,” Pence said.
One other Fox guest, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), disagreed with the comment. “We [Democrats] we support Roe v. Wade,” Cardin said. “We thought it was a longtime law. This has been the established law for nearly 50 years. The Supreme Court’s decision was a radical decision that reversed women’s rights to make their very own healthcare decisions.”
This law “should not be subordinated to what state legislatures are doing,” Cardin said. “This can be a personal decision made by women on the recommendation of their doctors and families. We do not think we must always tell women once they could make these decisions.”
But at the least one GOP challenger said on Sunday he probably would not subscribe to Pence’s idea. Former Latest Jersey governor Chris Christie, who announced his candidacy for president earlier this month, said that while he supports the Dobbs decision, he’ll oppose the concept of a federal abortion ban until there’s a “national consensus” on the problem.
“Conservatives like me have argued for the last 50 years that this will not be a federal issue. decisions,” he told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
“I’m hoping to see that every of the 50 states, but more importantly, the people of every of the 50 states making the choice on this matter, could see a national consensus develop,” Christie said.
“If there’s a national consensus, I don’t have any problem with the federal government stepping in and confirming that national consensus.”