‘This should not be dismissed’: Kennedy scares both sides of abortion debate

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ambiguous stance on abortion has advocates on both sides of the issue on edge.

Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan have taken vague and sometimes conflicting positions on abortion — endorsing a 15-week ban before walking it back, and offering just enough detail for people across the ideological spectrum to hear what they want while committing to few specifics.

That’s left abortion-rights groups concerned that Kennedy and Shanahan could muddy the waters on an issue with which they hope to present a clear contrast between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. And it has anti-abortion groups worried that some of the conservative voters they’ll need in swing states that are likely to be decided by small margins will back Kennedy out of frustration with Trump’s pledge to leave abortion policy to the states and his repeated criticisms of sweeping restrictions adopted by Arizona and Florida.

“They’re looking at Trump, they’re looking at Biden, they’re looking at RFK and they’re saying, ‘I don’t see any pro-life candidates,’” said Allie Beth Stuckey, a conservative activist who hosts the popular podcast Relatable, adding that discouraged voters she’s talked to are attracted to RFK Jr.’s other policies, like his well-known opposition to vaccine mandates. “This should be troubling to the Trump camp. This should not be dismissed.”

Anxiety about Kennedy appears even higher on the left.

The campaign arm of Reproductive Freedom for All — the abortion-rights group formerly called NARAL — spent five figures to run a YouTube ad for a week in late April targeting voters ages 18 to 40 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin, arguing that Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan would “put your reproductive freedom at risk.”

“I am absolutely concerned. We have to be. We’d be bad at our jobs if we weren't,” Reproductive Freedom for All President Mini Timmaraju said of RFK Jr.’s candidacy. “He could siphon folks away from the president.”

The Democratic National Committee, EMILYs List and the opposition research firm American Bridge 21st Century also blasted out press releases over the past week attacking Kennedy’s flip-flops on abortion rights and arguing that only Biden will protect patients’ access to the procedure.

Well aware that much of the electorate is dissatisfied with both major party candidates and open to alternatives, abortion-rights activists fear Kennedy could tip the scales in Trump’s favor, while anti-abortion groups say he could deliver Biden another four years in office. And while both sides argue that Kennedy’s all-over-the-map abortion stance should make it hard for voters to trust him, they fret that his wealth, name recognition, relative youth and anti-vax activism is appealing to enough people to potentially upend the race.

The Constitution Party’s decision in late April to nominate anti-abortion activist Randall Terry as its presidential candidate is another wild card — giving anti-abortion voters disinclined to vote for Trump an additional option.

“I’ve heard a lot of Christian, pro-life voters say that they will not vote for Biden because of his policies and they will not vote for Trump because of his character. Many friends, family and some movement colleagues have expressed that they are seriously considering voting for third-party candidates or casting a write-in ballot,” said one national anti-abortion activist, granted anonymity to candidly discuss internal conversations. “I think [Kennedy] will take away support from both [Trump and Biden], but I think he has the potential to take away more votes from Trump — that’s why Trump is trying to paint him now as a radical.”

As former Trump donors pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into Kennedy’s campaign, helping him secure a spot on the ballot in at least a dozen states and counting, the former president has ramped up his attacks on his Truth Social platform, calling Kennedy a “totally Anti-Gun, an Extreme Environmentalist who makes the Green New Scammers look Conservative, a Big Time Taxer and Open Border Advocate, and Anti-Military/Vet.” The Democratic National Committee has also mobilized against Kennedy and other third-party candidates, hiring veteran operative Lis Smith to run an aggressive opposition research and messaging campaign.

“With reproductive freedom under attack, we need leaders who will stand strong for women. It’s clear that neither RFK Jr. nor Trump will,” Smith said in a statement.

Though Kennedy rarely mentions abortion in ads, speeches, statements or social media posts — and has no voting record on the issue, having never held elected office — he has taken a variety of positions since launching his presidential campaign last year.

He hired anti-abortion activist Angela Stanton King and called for a national ban on the procedure after the first trimester, then backed away from that stance. He has both said that “every abortion is a tragedy” and that he identifies as “pro-choice” and he believes “it is always the woman’s right to choose” — linking the stance in interviews to his anti-vaccine activism under the umbrella of “medical freedom.” In late April, after reporters repeatedly pressed him about his position on one of the defining issues of the 2024 election, he added an abortion policy plan to his campaign website, proposing that funds now going to support Ukraine be redirected to “a massive subsidized daycare initiative” that “will dramatically reduce abortion in this country.” The plan does not include any details about how Kennedy would approach state or federal efforts to restrict abortion.

Anti-abortion leaders, including CatholicVote’s Tom McClusky and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s Marjorie Dannenfelser, have offered muted praise for some of these proposals, arguing that they compare favorably to Biden’s aggressive promotion of abortion access. Yet they stress that voters in favor of curbing abortion should not put their hopes in his campaign.

“I consider him a pro-abortion candidate,” McClusky said. “He’s pro-family, but at the same time, he’s not pro-life.”

The Kennedy campaign declined to comment, instead referring POLITICO to his website’s “More Choices, More Life” policy page.

Shanahan, who joined the ticket in April, recently wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that giving the government control over women’s bodies is “coercive” and “wrong,” but she also “would not feel right terminating a viable life living inside of me.”

“I can hold both beliefs, as someone who believes in the sacredness of life, simultaneously,” she said.

It was Kennedy’s decision to bring Shanahan onto the ticket that prompted Reproductive Freedom for All to cut its ad, a decision Timmaraju said was not made in coordination with Biden’s campaign, which the group has endorsed.

“It’s obvious they picked Nicole to appeal to women,” she said. “So it was important for us to get out there early and de-credential them.”

Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins, whose organization has teams knocking on doors in nearly every swing state, said she was initially baffled when she started hearing that anti-abortion voters were interested in Kennedy-Shanahan.

“But I was thinking about it later and realized, Oh, that makes sense, because they're not seeing leadership from President Trump on these issues,” she said. “Or they’re saying, ‘Well, Kennedy isn't with us on abortion, but he'll be with us on vaccinations and holding the pharmaceutical companies accountable.’ Those are also issues that moms care about beyond just abortion.”

Meanwhile, several conservative advocates told POLITICO that Constitution Party candidate Terry, a hardline anti-abortion activist who has been arrested dozens of times, could prove more appealing than Kennedy to voters disappointed in Trump’s abortion stance. However, speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation for publicly criticizing a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement, they questioned whether he can fundraise enough to get his message out and whether his “way too extreme” position would turn off swing voters.

“He may get the prosecutionists and the fundamentalists, but they probably weren’t going to vote for Trump or Biden anyway,” one anti-abortion group leader said.

The first question in the FAQ section of Terry’s campaign website asks whether his campaign will “hurt Trump” and answers, “That is not our concern. Trump has hurt Trump by waffling on his pro-life position.”

“There is some concern out there that [our campaign] may hurt Donald Trump, but that is not our intent,” Terry’s running mate, Texas pastor Stephen Broden, told POLITICO. “I think most Americans at this time are disgusted with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and they're looking for an alternative.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended the former president’s record in a statement to POLITICO, saying the Supreme Court justices he nominated “secured the biggest win for the pro-life movement in 50 years by rightfully returning the issue of abortion back to the states” and calling Biden’s abortion position “radically out of touch with the majority of Americans.”

Even abortion opponents who defend Trump as the best option in the race say they’re concerned about the allure of third-party candidates. Still, no anti-abortion leaders who spoke to POLITICO said they knew of any plans to run ads against Kennedy.

“I'd advise against swatting flies when there's a wolf at your door,” McClusky said. “If groups have the resources, I would say they should concentrate on President Biden if they actually care about the life issue.”