The Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched billboards in North Carolina on Saturday, attacking former President Donald Trump’s abortion stance ahead of his event in Wilmington.
Republican lawmakers overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto to approve North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban, prompting the placement of 16 billboards in both English and Spanish in Charlotte and Wilmington. According to the DNC, this is the most billboards it has put up in reaction to Trump’s influence in states this election year.
“Donald Trump is responsible for the attacks on reproductive rights that we are seeing in North Carolina and across the country,” DNC spokesperson Jackie Bush said in a statement to The Hill. “His anti-freedom program is already harming the lives of women in North Carolina, but Trump and his allies will not stop until every woman in the country faces an extreme national abortion ban.
“That’s why women in North Carolina and across the country will reject Trump’s extreme bans at the ballot box this November and send President Joe Biden back to the White House,” Bush said in a statement.
Just a few weeks ago, Trump refrained from commenting on a potential nationwide abortion ban, asserting that individual states should make the final decision. In a four-minute video that Truth Social released, Trump expressed his gratitude for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but he refrained from supporting federal abortion legislation, contrary to the urging of certain conservative groups.
He then claimed that a national ban was “unnecessary” because the Supreme Court had overturned the federal right to abortion access.
“We don’t need it anymore.” “Because we overturned Roe v. Wade and accomplished something no one thought possible,” Trump stated. “We returned it to the States. And the states are working quite well, sometimes conservatively and sometimes not. But they’re working, and it’s going well.”
The former president has also stated that if reelected in November, he will not sign a nationwide prohibition on the practice if it passes Congress.
Currently, states vary and constantly implement new restrictions, resulting in a patchwork of rules governing abortion access. Many states have also campaigned to place abortion on the ballot, giving Democrats hope that initiatives aimed at enshrining abortion rights will increase turnout and benefit their candidates in the most competitive contests.
