Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sat down with the Catholic station EWTN this week to discuss why he rejected the “pro-choice” position on abortion and became pro-life, The Blaze reports.
Some pro-lifers remain skeptical about the sincerity of Trump’s position and promises regarding the right to life. During the interview with Raymond Arroyo, Trump responded by emphasizing that he, like other presidents before him, has changed and does want to protect unborn babies from abortion.
“I am pro-life,” he told Arroyo.
Trump said a “number of moments” influenced his change of heart on the matter, but the biggest was a “magnificent person” he knows who was almost aborted.
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He told Arroyo:
One was a couple that I know very, very well. And you had a strong pro-life and you had a strong pro-choice, and they argued over — the mother was pregnant — they argued over the child.
One — I won’t get into the specifics — but one wanted to abort and the other said we can’t do that, we’re not going to do that. Anyway, they had the baby — it was a long time ago — and the baby is such a magnificent person, who I know, a magnificent person.
And the person that was actually pro-choice is now pro-life because of it, and it had an effect on me.
Trump noted that President Ronald Reagan also was “pro-choice” on abortion at one time, but changed his mind and became a strong pro-life advocate.
Back in 1991, Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “pro-choice in every respect” and that he would not ban partial-birth abortions. But in February 2011 just before the conservative CPAC conference, Trump announced that he had changed his position on abortion and was pro-life. During an interview with Fox News, Trump described himself as “pro-life” and promised to fight to reverse Obamacare, which contains abortion funding loopholes.
During an interview in April 2011 with CBN News, Trump explained the reason for his conversion by relating the same story that he did with EWTN.
“One of the reasons I changed — one of the primary reasons — a friend of mine’s wife was pregnant, in this case married. She was pregnant and he didn’t really want the baby. And he was telling me the story,” Trump told David Brody. “He was crying as he was telling me the story. He ends up having the baby and the baby is the apple of his eye. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. And you know here’s a baby that wasn’t going to be let into life. And I heard this, and some other stories, and I am pro-life.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has been fairly consistent with his pro-life policies. In September, Trump released a letter outlining his specific pro-life policies. One of them is to defund the abortion chain as long as it keeps killing unborn children. Trump also called to make permanent the Hyde Amendment, which bans direct taxpayer funding for abortions in Medicaid. He also said he will appoint “pro-life justices” to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump has made some troubling comments about the abortion business Planned Parenthood in the past, but lately he has been consistent about his support for defunding it and giving those tax dollars to community health centers that offer comprehensive health care.
