Donald Trump said he was “strongly in favour” of abortion access for women who have been raped or in cases of incest as he waded into the issue set to dominate the presidential race.
Mr Trump has long avoided the topic of abortion, considering it a toxic issue among potential Republican voters – many of whom are not aligned with the party’s sceptical position on terminations.
However, in a video on Truth Social, his social media platform, on Monday, he said that limits on abortion should be left to individual US states.
He went on to say he was “strongly in favour of exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother”.
The former president defended his opposition to Roe v Wade, which established a nationwide protection for abortion in 1973 and was overturned in 2022.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” he said.
“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.
“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative [rules] than others and that’s what they will be.
“At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”
Mr Trump’s intervention comes after Joe Biden indicated he would make abortion rights a key issue in this year’s election campaign.
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