Melania Trump defends abortion rights in new memoir

Melania Trump in a red suit stands inside an arena

Published Oct. 2, 2024 Updated Oct. 3, 2024 5:22 PM PT

Melania Trump‘s comments come late in a presidential campaign in which the battle over abortion rights has played a central role.
She has rarely been seen in public during her husband’s campaign against Kamala Harris.

Former First Lady Melania Trump offered a forceful defense on Thursday of a woman’s right to abortion — including in the late stages of pregnancy — a direct contradiction of the political stance of her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” the former president’s wife said Thursday in a video posted on X promoting her memoir, “Melania,” scheduled to be released next week. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”

The timing of her comments is surprising, coming in the final weeks of a presidential campaign in which Donald Trump’s role in curbing abortion rights has been a central issue. She has rarely been seen publicly during her husband’s campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — an exceptionally tight contest that could be decided by a small number of voters in a few battleground states.

In excerpts of her memoir published by the Guardian on Wednesday, Melania Trump writes that she does not believe the government should play a role in women’s reproductive healthcare.

“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she wrote.

She appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee shortly after her husband survived an assassination attempt. Two of the former first lady’s most high-profile appearances were headlining fundraisers, including one at her home in Trump Tower in Manhattan that raised a couple of million dollars for the pro-LGBTQ+ Log Cabin Republicans. Her participation in the events raised eyebrows when it was revealed she received six-figure payments to take part, though it is unclear who paid.

Trump wrote that she has carried beliefs about a woman’s right to bodily autonomy her entire adult life.

“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” Trump wrote. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.”

Melania Trump’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment, but the former president spoke about the issue before his rally Thursday in Saginaw, Mich.

Asked by Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin about his thoughts when he read his wife’s support for abortion access in her memoir, Trump described the former first lady as “beloved” and appeared supportive of her publicly announcing her views.

“We spoke about it. And I said, ‘You have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell what you to do,’” the candidate said. “I said you have to stick with your heart. I’ve said that to everybody, you have to go with your heart. There are some people that are very, very far right on the issue, meaning without exceptions, and then there are other people that view it a little bit differently than that.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs. Wade, the landmark decision that provided a federal right to abortion access, the issue has been central in the nation’s politics. Advertisements in swing states such as Arizona feature the testimonials of women with nonviable pregnancies who could not get timely medical care until their health worsened because of doctors’ fears of running afoul of state laws.

ProPublica recently published a report about a Georgia woman who died because of lack of access to appropriate medical care as she suffered sepsis because of fetal tissue that was not expelled from her body after a medical abortion.

In addition to the presidential campaign, the matter has been on multiple state ballots and is expected to be critical in determining which party controls the House of Representatives — a result that could come down to suburban women in places such as Orange County and the suburbs of cities such as Philadelphia and Atlanta who may have conservative views but support abortion access.

Polling shows the majority of Americans do not approve of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson to overturn Roe, and support abortion rights.

Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School, said Melania Trump’s support for abortion rights shows why curtailing them — once an academic discussion that has now become a reality — could be deeply problematic for Republicans.

“One of Donald Trump’s biggest impacts is how he changed the Supreme Court and their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Some have said if Kamala Harris wins, it’s because Roe was overturned,” she said. “And now we have the wife of the president who helped [facilitate] Roe being overturned saying she strongly supports a woman’s right to choose. ... And she’s not the only Republican woman to think that.”

The former president has had a dizzying set of positions on the issue.

In 1999, he described himself as “very pro-choice.” In 2011, when he was courting conservatives as he considered a 2012 run for the White House, he said “I am pro-life.” In the weeks before he won the 2016 election, he vowed to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Since the Dobbs decision, Trump has frustrated his onetime allies in the antiabortion movement by repeatedly changing his message in response to GOP midterm losses and widespread public outrage and unease over abortion bans.

In early 2023, Trump blamed the “abortion issue” for Republicans underperforming expectations in the 2022 midterms. Six months later, on the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, he called himself the “most pro-life president ever” and boasted about appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.

Since then, Trump has gradually pivoted away from such staunch antiabortion rhetoric.

In a September 2023 appearance on “Meet the Press,” Trump dubbed Florida’s six-week abortion ban “a terrible mistake.” He pledged to work with Democrats to pass a national bipartisan law on abortion.

This week, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he did not support an outright national abortion ban, “and would, in fact, veto it.” He added that “I fully support” exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.

From national to state and local races, Democrats have seized upon the issue of reproductive rights to drive their voters to the polls.

“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom and their lives,” Sarafina Chitika, a Harris campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women’s access to reproductive healthcare.”

People who know Trump, whether friendly or adversarial with the former first lady, said her views were not surprising.

“She is her own woman, She has her own opinions,” said someone with deep ties with the Trump campaign who has engaged with her regularly and who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. “I think she and her husband’s world views align on a lot of things. Just like any normal human beings, there are going to be areas where they disagree. She’s not going to compromise on her beliefs. I think that’s very clear if you’ve seen the trajectory of her entire career.”

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris shake hands before the start of their September debate.

Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s former chief of staff and press secretary turned critic, said in an interview she was not surprised by the former first lady’s beliefs, but she was surprised by the timing.

“She has always been very independent and done her own things, so the fact that she has such a different position from him on this topic doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Grisham, who resigned after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “The fact that she’s choosing to share it in a memoir is what I find odd. Sharing that excerpt right now and talking about it in a memoir at all is kind of strange.”

“I don’t know,” Grisham added. “Maybe she’s trying to appeal to a different audience in order to sell more copies of the book.”

It’s not unusual for a president or nominee and their spouse to disagree on policy. Former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, and former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush did not see eye to eye on reproductive rights. Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards and his late wife Elizabeth disagreed about same-sex marriage.

Trump’s book suggests she has other disagreements with her husband on issues such as immigration, but that she prefers to deal with them outside of the public eye.

“Occasional political disagreements between me and my husband [are] part of our relationship, but I believed in addressing them privately rather than publicly challenging him,” Trump wrote.

A notable section of Melania Trump’s writing focuses on late-term abortions, which were a key point in the sole debate between Donald Trump and Harris, with the Republican claiming that Democrats support allowing abortion in the final months of pregnancy and — falsely — that they even support killing babies after they are born.

“It’s an execution,” Donald Trump said.

Killing babies after they are born is not legal in any state.

Very few women have abortions after the first or second trimester — fewer than 1% of such procedures are performed at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Such procedures are almost always performed because of dire threats to the health of the mother or the fetus.

Melania Trump’s views on late-term abortion reflect the reality that women choose this route because of dire jeopardy to their health or their baby’s.

“It is important to note that historically, most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother,” the former first lady wrote. “These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor. As a community, we should embrace these common-sense standards.”

Mehta reported from Los Angeles, Jarvie from Atlanta.