Ron DeSantis rips Donald Trump dodge on abortion question

DeSantis women
'I signed the bill. … He will not answer whether he would have signed it or not.'

Ron DeSantis is ripping Donald Trump for his refusal to take a stand on the abortion question.

In the wake of Trump’s vague criticisms of Florida’s new six-week abortion ban, the Florida Governor fired back at the former President.

“I signed the bill. I was proud to do it. He will not answer whether he would sign it or not,” DeSantis said in Lighthouse Point.

“Protecting an unborn child when there’s the detectable heartbeat is something that almost, probably, 99% of pro-lifers support. It’s something other states like Iowa under Gov. Kim Reynolds have enacted,” DeSantis continued.

“And I think that as a Florida resident, you know, he didn’t give an answer to the question, ‘Would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did that had all the exceptions that people talk about?’ The Legislature put it in.”

The Governor’s fiery comments come after Trump offered meandering remarks in an interview published Monday.

In an interview with The Messenger, Trump said that even “pro-lifers” think the new six-week abortion ban is “too harsh.”

“Well, he has to do what he has to do. If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that was too harsh,” Trump told reporter Marc Caputo.

Trump was vague in saying his own feelings about the law, meanwhile, focusing instead on the changes he brought to the Supreme Court.

“I’m looking at all alternatives. I’m looking at many alternatives. But I was able to get us to the table by terminating Roe v. Wade. That’s the most important thing that’s ever happened for the pro-life movement,” Trump said.

“For 50 years, they’ve been trying to get rid of Roe v Wade. I was able to do it. Nobody else could have done that but me. And I was able to do it (by nominating) three excellent judges on the Justices of the Supreme Court. And I was able to do that. What it did more than anything else is it gave us a tremendous power of negotiation, which we didn’t have, the pro-life movement, a tremendous power of negotiation. … Now the pro-life movement has the power to negotiate a deal that’s acceptable for them.”

Despite the six-week ban in most cases, the law allows for certain exceptions.

2022’s HB 5 made no exception for cases of rape and incest, a controversy at the time. However, the new bill would allow abortion up to the 15th week of pregnancy if the woman was impregnated by human trafficking, rape or incest or a combination thereof. That exception would include statutory rapes.

Other exceptions would apply. If two doctors judge the pregnant woman to be in danger of dying or suffering “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition,” she could have an abortion. That sole physician’s recommendation would suffice if only one doctor were available.

Likewise, if the fetus had a “fatal abnormality,” abortion would be permitted during the first two trimesters.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


9 comments

  • PeterH

    May 16, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    Yes Rhonda, you signed America’s most restrictive abortion bill and that’s one of the primary reasons you will never sit in the Oval Office.

    I hope your contributors learn a lesson while they send you endless campaign contributions over the next two years. They may be educated to learn what a loser looks like.

  • Rob Desantos

    May 16, 2023 at 1:05 pm

    FYI for Republicans, a fetal heart does not develop the chambers to make an actual “heartbeat” until 4-5 months into pregnancy. Before then a machine is simply turning electrical impulses into sounds, but there is still no beating heart at 6 or 10 or 15 weeks.

    • Rob Desantos

      May 16, 2023 at 1:16 pm

      Also, be sure to count how many times Desanctus uses the word “heartbeat” while carefully avoiding the more relevant word… “abortion.” He’s nothing more than a political striver and a personal coward.

  • SB Holloway

    May 16, 2023 at 1:07 pm

    How and why did we get to this very low point in our political discourse to allow two self centered, misogynistic male buffoons digress into a pizzing contest on who can be the most restrictive on medical decisions that impact the lives of 150,000,000 American women? Women need to wake up!

  • AngelinaJames

    May 16, 2023 at 1:27 pm

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  • Michael K

    May 16, 2023 at 1:40 pm

    Remember when governor DeathSentence was running for office and REFUSED to answer a singe question regarding his stance on abortion? We we warned and now we know, and it’s all for show.

  • Dont Say FLA

    May 16, 2023 at 3:17 pm

    Doctors and teachers Dont’ Say FLA without prefacing it with “I gotta the fiick out of…”

  • Mercury Shampoo Ed 👍

    May 16, 2023 at 4:22 pm

    Epic pig fight.. neither one will win in 2024.

  • Ocean Joe

    May 16, 2023 at 9:01 pm

    Says the guy who signed the bill in the dark.

Comments are closed.


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