INDIANAPOLIS – Donald Trump will make a virtual appearance on Monday before a Christian group calling for abortion to be “totally eradicated,” as the presumptive Republican nominee again addresses an issue that Democrats want to focus of this year’s presidential elections.
The former president pre-recorded a video that will be shown at an event hosted by The Danbury Institute, which meets in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Danbury Institute, an association of churches, Christians and organizations, states on its website that it believes “that the greatest atrocity facing our generation today is the practice of abortion” and that “it must end.”
“We will not rest until it is completely eradicated,” the group said.
Trump has repeatedly been credited with nullifying the federally guaranteed right to abortion — having appointed three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. resisted supporting a national abortion ban and says he wants to leave the issue to the states.
Although the Danbury Institute announced Trump as a virtual speaker at the event, his campaign clarified on Monday that Trump had pre-recorded a brief video. In a transcript of his remarks provided by the campaign, Trump thanks the audience for their “tremendous devotion to God and country.”
“These are difficult times for our nation and your work is very important. We cannot allow anyone to sit on the sidelines – now is the time for us all to come together and defend our values and our freedoms,” Trump said, according to the transcript. “We must defend religious freedom, freedom of speech, innocent life, and the heritage and traditions that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. I know each of you protects these values every day – and I hope we defend them side by side over the next four years.”
Both the Southern Baptists who will hear from Trump on Monday and Republicans in general are divided on abortion policy, with some calling for an immediate and complete ban on abortion and others more open to incremental tactics. Polls in recent years have found that a majority of Americans support some access to abortion, and abortion rights groups have gained multiple votes statewide since Roe was overturned, including in conservative-led states like Kansas It is Ohio.
Like the Republican Party, the Southern Baptist Convention has moved steadily to the right since the 1980s, and its members have been at the forefront of the broader religious movement that has strongly supported Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Trump. The Conservative Baptist Network, one of the event’s sponsors, wants to move the conservative denomination even further to the right.
Although they criticized President Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior in the 1990s, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals supported Trump. This has continued despite allegations of sexual misconduct, multiple divorces and now his conviction on 34 counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a secret payment to a pornographic actor who said the two had sex. Trump will give his speech on the same day he appears virtually for a pre-sentence interview required with New York probation officers.
Many Southern Baptists say they see him as the only alternative to a Democratic agenda they abhor.
H. Sharayah Colter, a spokeswoman for the Danbury Institute, said in a statement that the presidential race was a “binary choice” and said Trump “has demonstrated a willingness to protect the value of life even when politically unpopular.”
And Albert Mohler, longtime president of the denomination’s main seminary and once an outspoken critic of Clinton, wrote a column after Trump’s conviction attacking Democrats for supporting transgender rights.
“Say what you want about Donald Trump and his sex scandals, he doesn’t confuse men and women,” wrote Mohler, who is one of the speakers listed for Monday’s event, along with others on the denomination’s right flank.
Trump has said he would not sign a national abortion ban and in an interview with Fox News last week, when commenting on the way some states are enshrining abortion rights and others restricting them, he said that “people are deciding and in many anyway, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”
For more than a year, until he announced his position this spring, Trump backed away from supporting any specific national limit on abortion, unlike many other Republicans who ended up ending their presidential campaigns. Trump has repeatedly said the question can be politically complicated and suggested he would “negotiate” a policy that included exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.
The campaign of Democrats and President Joe Biden tried to tie Trump to more conservative state abortion bans, as well as a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that would have restricted access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility procedures that are widely popular.
“Four more years of Donald Trump means empowering organizations like the Danbury Institute that want to ban abortion nationwide and punish women who have abortions,” said Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign. “Trump brags about being responsible for overturning Roe, he thinks the extreme state bans that are happening now because of him are ‘working very brilliantly,’ and if given the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban. These are the bets this November.”
When asked about his appearance before the Danbury Institute, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “has been very clear: he supports the rights of states to determine the laws on this issue and supports the three exceptions to rape, incest and the mother’s life.”
Leavitt also said: “President Trump is committed to reaching out to groups with diverse opinions on all issues, as evidenced by his recent speech at the Libertarian Conventionfrom him meetings with unionsand their efforts to campaign in diverse neighborhoods all over the country.”
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