CLAIM: President Donald Trump “ripped away the freedom of millions of American women to make decisions about their own bodies.”
VERDICT: FALSE. A conservative Supreme Court sent the issue of abortion back to the states.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) told a rally in his hometown of Philadelphia on Tuesday that President Trump had taken away women’s freedom to choose an abortion. It was a claim made during a starkly partisan speech, in which Shapiro called Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, a “weirdo.” Shapiro was warming up the crowd ahead of the introduction of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.
Perhaps Shapiro was particularly emotional, given that he himself had been the favorite to join the ticket, until left-wing, anti-Israel — and possibly antisemitic — voices within the party objected to his selection.
Regardless, he was wrong.
Trump did not directly change anything on abortion. He appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court who he thought were likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made up the right to abortion from whole cloth.
In 2022, the Court threw out Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But it specifically did not say that women did not have the freedom to choose abortion. It simply left the issue to the states to decide.
Shapiro knows that. Or he should, because Walz — the man he was introducing — signed a law in 2023 removing all restrictions on abortion in Minnesota (and defunding pregnancy counseling centers). It was the first such law passed in the wake of Dobbs, and there is nothing at all to stop Minnesota from having abortions until the moment of birth.
It is true that Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade. He is proud to have allowed pro-life laws to be passed in states that support them. But he has specifically refused to endorse the idea of national abortion legislation.
Trump did not take away anyone’s freedom. Shapiro is simply repeating the talking points, and falling into line.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
