Former President Donald Trump has accurately boasted that he played a central role in getting the Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed abortion rights across the country. But he keeps making wildly inaccurate claims that the court’s 2022 decision to rescind Roe had universal support.
In a video statement on abortion policy he posted on social media Monday, Trump said: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and, in fact, demanded be ended: Roe v. Wade. They wanted it ended.” Later in his statement, Trump said that since “we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” states are free to determine their own abortion laws.
It wasn’t clear there whether Trump was using “everybody” to refer to legal scholars in particular or the American public. But in previous statements this year, he has broadly claimed that “everybody,” period, agreed the power to determine abortion law should be returned to individual states.
Facts First: Trump’s claim that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe overturned is not even close to true; many wanted Roe preserved, as several legal scholars reiterated in Monday comments to CNN. And Trump’s broader claims that “everybody” wanted states to be granted the power to determine abortion law are also false; opinion polls have consistently showed a large majority of Americans did not want Roe terminated.
Many legal scholars wanted Roe preserved
It’s not clear what percentage of “legal scholars” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Some of them certainly did.
But Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, claimed that “all” of them wanted Roe gone. A simple Google search shows that is untrue.
…
Read the full article here
