J.D. Vance: Anti-Abortion Acolyte
On Wednesday, the Republican National Convention formally introduced its Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance. The Ohio Senator is a 39-year-old former venture capitalist who rose to prominence thanks to his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which offered a harshly critical lens on his upbringing.
A one-time critic of Trump, Vance changed his tune as his political ambitions rose. Last night his fealty to Trump was on full display as his new running mate. The speech Vance delivered was heavy on his own upbringing and Midwest roots, but light on policy.
Missing from Vance’s speech was any specific mention of abortion. There has been attempt to frame the Trump campaign as “softening” its stance on the issue when that couldn’t be further from the case. Selecting Vance, who has an extreme record opposing abortion access, shows what the stakes are for reproductive access in the November election.
CNN recently unearthed a clip of Vance endorsing a national abortion ban when he was running for Senate. “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,” he said on a podcast. He also spoke with The Cincinnati Enquirer, where he simultaneously tried to say he preferred abortion be left to the states, while also saying he believed in “some minimum national standard.”
As he was running for Senate, Vance also talked about the Texas abortion ban, Senate Bill 8. When asked by a local channel if he supported abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest, Vance said “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
ProPublica recently published a speech from Vance in 2021 to a conservative networking group, with ties to The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, where he attacked corporations that issued statements opposing SB 8. “If we're unwilling to make companies that are taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain, then we're not serious about winning the culture war,” he told the Teneo group.
After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, Vance released a statement praising the ruling. “Today is a great day,” he wrote. Two days later, on Twitter he sent a message seemingly disparaging women without children.
As of this week, Vance’s former campaign website redirects to a page for Donald Trump. The Daily Beast clocked that a page about abortion was also gone. On that page, Vance stated he is “100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured.”
