Republican presidential candidates have been hard to pin down on just how they’d set federal policy on abortion, dancing around questions or throwing out different answers at different times.
But they all agree on one thing: accusing Democrats of wanting legal abortion, “on demand,” up until the moment of birth.
It’s a claim a number of Republicans leaned on in the 2022 midterms as they tried to combat intense backlash against their party after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Some voices in the GOP say they’re at a disadvantage on abortion because they haven’t pushed the message hard enough.
And the claim is getting new life on the 2024 campaign trail as Republican primary contenders seek to frame Democrats as “extreme” on abortion, even after Democrats successfully parried such attacks on their way to a surprisingly strong showing last year.