Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance as his running mate largely as a signal of confidence in his own ability to retake the White House, but in the days following the Republican National Convention, Vance’s record has acted as anvil for the campaign — and a magnifying glass for concerns about a second Trump presidency. Nowhere is this more apparent than on issues related to reproductive rights and abortion access.
As president, Trump played a pivotal role in ending federal protections for abortion rights, as he appointed three Supreme Court justices necessary to repeal Roe v. Wade. As the decision — and the many state level restrictions on reproductive freedoms that followed — has generated voter backlash, Trump has attempted to soften his position on abortion in a clear electoral ploy.
Trump and his vice presidential pick are now both saying abortion should be left up to the states, even though they both previously signaled support for national bans. They have also, alarmingly, both suggested they would be OK with states moving to surveil women’s pregnancies.
In May, a host at WGAL, an NBC affiliate in Pennsylvania, noted to Trump that there were ads running that suggested he would support certain states with bans monitoring women’s pregnancies.
“Well, that would be up to the states, again,” Trump responded. “They will make a decision as to how they do it. So far, a lot of states are coming in without that, without any of that. And that would all be up to the states. Everything having to do with that question is now in the hands of the states, which is where every legal scholar — and that’s on both sides Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative — every legal scholar wanted it to be in the hands of the states. And that’s what they’ve done.”
Vance, an Ohio senator, has gone further. Last summer, he signed onto a congressional letter calling on the Biden administration to withdraw a draft rule designed to prevent police in states with abortion bans from using personal health information to track and potentially charge people who travel to other states for abortion care.
“Abortion is not health care — it is a brutal act that destroys the life of an unborn child and hurts women,” Vance and the lawmakers wrote, arguing that the proposed rule “unlawfully thwarts the enforcement of compassionate laws protecting unborn children and their mothers, and directs health care providers to defy lawful court orders and search warrants.” (The rule was finalized in April.)
During his 2022 Senate campaign, Vance argued that regulating abortion on a state-by-state basis would not be sufficient, because patients could still travel to blue states for abortions.
“Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overruled,” he said. “Ohio bans abortion … you know, in let’s say 2024. And then, every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity.”
The GOP’s Project 2025 agenda handbook — which Trump has disavowed because its abortion provisions are politically toxic — similarly includes plans to use federal agencies for expanded “abortion surveillance,” and calls for the next administration to “use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”
Emilia Rowland, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, says: “Because of Trump, prosecutors looking to enforce draconian anti-abortion laws in the states are now free to go after reproductive health data in mobile apps. But Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would go even further — calling for every abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, and incidental pregnancy loss from medical treatments like chemo to be reported to the federal government under a Trump administration, tearing away health data privacy protections under HIPAA, and allowing states to surveil patients and doctors, monitor pregnancies, restrict women’s freedom to travel for abortion care, and ultimately use health data against patients and providers in court. This isn’t about policy, it’s about control.”
