What does the Supreme Court ruling on abortion say?
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(CNN) --
During his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Donald Trump had a sure-fire way of allaying doubts about his conservative bona fides: He talked about who he might appoint, if given the chance, to the Supreme Court.
In May 2016, amid questions raised by Texas Senator Ted Cruz about whether Trump was really a conservative, Trump released a list of 11 people he would consider appointing to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who had deceased in February.
Said Trump about Scalia and the list:
"He was a judge who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I hold in the highest esteem and I will always have great respect for his intelligence and conviction in defending the Constitution of our country. The following list of possible judges to the Court Supreme Court is representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value, and as president, I plan to use this list as a guide in nominating our next justices to the United States Supreme Court."
(It's worth noting: Trump's eventual pick to replace Scalia, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was not on his initial list of 11.)
Trump's tactic worked: The list of justices was very well received by conservatives.
The air was gone from Cruz's balloon, and in a month or so it was clear that Trump would be the Republican nominee for president.
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In September of that year, with his campaign faltering again amid less than unanimous support from conservatives, Trump added 10 other potential court candidates to his list, including Gorsuch.
Several states will protect access to abortion despite the Court's ruling 1:31
"The Supreme Court ... is what it's all about," Trump said in his final debate with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. "It's so, so imperative that we get the right justices."
And he added: "The judges that I am going to appoint will be 'pro-life,' they will have a conservative bent."
At another point in that debate, when asked directly if he wanted Roe vs.
Wade, Trump had this to say: "Well, if we put in another two or maybe three more justices, that will happen. That will happen automatically in my opinion."
The US Supreme Court strikes down the right to abortion
On September 9, 2020, after appointing both Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to Supreme Court seats, Trump employed the same strategy that had worked so well to draw conservatives to him four years earlier: he unveiled a list of 20 possible candidates if another vacancy arose during a second term.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the names on that list, said he was "honored" to be mentioned, adding, "It's time for Roe vs. Wade to go."
Just nine days after Trump released his list, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
Eight days later, Trump, in the midst of election season, nominated conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg.
("A judge should apply the law as it is written," she Barrett said in accepting the nomination. "Judges are not policymakers.")
A month later, and just a week before the 2020 election, the Senate confirmed Barrett by a 52-48 margin. In doing so, they established a commanding 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Trump went on to win 85% of self-identifying conservatives and 76% of white evangelicals in the 2020 election, even as he lost nationally to Joe Biden.
Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett have taken over the Supreme Court, for now
Given all of this, it is no exaggeration to say that without his promises on the court, Trump may never have made it to the White House, and never would have had the opportunity to appoint three justices who fundamentally reshaped the ideological makeup of the court.
And without Trump doing that, on this day, the overturning of Roe vs.
Wade after five decades, he never would have made it.
What can be said, without a doubt, is that the Roe decision will be the defining legacy of Trump's four years in office, and will likely be at the core of his appeal to conservatives if/when he runs for president again. in 2024.
Trump will no doubt promote himself as the one who helped eliminate the constitutional right to abortion.
And if the past is prologue to the future, that will have a powerful effect on his appeal to conservative voters.
What is it like to have an abortion in Texas, a state where it is prohibited?
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For Trump to go down in history as the president who laid the legal pieces to overturn Roe is decidedly ironic.
In 1999, Trump told Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he was "very pro-abortion," adding, "I hate the concept of abortion. ... I cringe when I hear people debating the subject, but I still believe in the election.
The Supreme Court ruling on abortion could open the doors to reconsider the right to equal marriage and contraceptives
Trump ended up changing his position on the issue.
As he told the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2011:
"I am pro-life, but I changed my point of view several years ago. One of the reasons I changed, one of the main reasons, was that the wife of a friend of mine was pregnant, in this case married."
"She was pregnant and he didn't want the baby. And he was telling me the story. He was crying as he told me the story. She ended up having the baby and it became the apple of his eye. It's the best thing that ever happened to him."
With the court's decision this Friday, the first paragraph of every Trump history book will include the Roe ruling.
Supreme Court Donald Trump Roe v.
Wade