Fact Check: Post Claims Trump Said He'd 'Force Every Pregnant Woman to Submit to Government Monitoring.' Here's the Actual Quote
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Claim:
In an interview for Time magazine's May 2024 issue, former U.S. President Donald Trump said, as president, he'd force every pregnant woman to submit to constant government monitoring to ensure she's doing nothing to endanger her fetus or terminate her pregnancy.
Rating:
Context:
Time magazine reported that Trump said policies surrounding abortion bans "should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies."
On May 1, 2024, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe posted on X that former U.S. President Donald Trump "just told TIME Magazine that in his second term as president he'd force every pregnant woman to submit to constant government monitoring" to prevent abortions:
This purported paraphrase of a section of a lengthy feature in the May 2024 issue of Time misrepresented the former president's actual statements. In reality, Trump said he would leave abortion issues up to states. Tribe did not immediately respond to Snopes' request for comment.
Speaking of abortion bans, the author of the story, Eric Cortellessa, wrote that "Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women's pregnancies." Cortellessa asked whether Trump "would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit." Again, Trump deferred to state's rights:
As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion.
At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn't sign a federal ban.
In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk.
More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women's pregnancies.
"I think they might do that," he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, "It's irrelevant whether I'm comfortable or not. It's totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions."
More accurately stated, Trump told Time that, as president, he would not prevent states from passing and enforcing laws that establish systems for monitoring people's pregnancies.
Because Trump did not say he would actively impose such a law, the claim that Trump stated he intended to pass federal legislation that would require pregnant people "to submit to constant government monitoring" to prevent abortions was "False."
Sources:
Bernstein, Joseph. "Why Is A Top Harvard Law Professor Sharing Anti-Trump Conspiracy Theories?" BuzzFeed News, 11 May 2017, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/larry-tribe-why.
"How Far Trump Would Go." TIME, 30 Apr. 2024, https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/.
