SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — On Monday, the chair of the Utah Democratic Party, Diane Lewis, released a statement in response to former President Donald Trump’s video statement on abortion.
“It is because of Donald Trump that Utahns are currently suffering from an 18-week-abortion ban, and it is because of Donald Trump that Utah’s Republican Politicians are trying to interfere with the personal medical decisions of Utah families,” Lewis said.
The former president took responsibility for the overturning of Roe V. Wade in a video posted on his social media platform on Monday, saying, “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.”
In the video, he discussed families and abortion rights. He also praised the Alabama legislature for passing legislation regarding in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and said the Republican Party should “always be on the side of the miracle of life.”
He continued on, saying Democrats are “the radical ones” for supporting abortion and “execution after birth.” However, he also said that he would be “in favor of exceptions” in certain instances — such as rape or incest.
In response, Lewis’s statement said, “Donald Trump said it himself: Trump is ‘proudly the person responsible’ for overturning Roe v. Wade and the extreme abortion bans across the country like Utah’s Trigger Ban …”
Lewis said Utah’s “inhumane near-total abortion ban” has been temporarily blocked by the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the ACLU of Utah, but said Utahns “must remain wary” of Trump becoming the president again.
“People living in states with near-total abortion bans like Utah’s trigger ban have faced medical complications, financial burdens, and criminal and civil prosecution, all because they tried to access medically-necessary reproductive healthcare,” Lewis said in the statement.
The Utah Democratic Party continued on to say that Trump “would sign a national abortion ban if it came to his desk,” but in his video, he said states should decide for themselves.
