Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said during the Republican presidential primary debate that he would “stand on the side of life” if he were elected president, but he did not clearly state whether he would support federal abortion restrictions.
When Fox News host and debate moderator Bret Baier pressed DeSantis on whether he would sign a six-week abortion limit federally, the way he did in Florida, DeSantis opaquely said he would “support the cause of life.”
“I’m going to stand on the side of life. Look, I understand Wisconsin is going to do it different than Texas. I understand Iowa and New Hampshire are going to do it differently. But I will support the cause of life as governor and as president,” he said.
DeSantis has previously noted that there is an interest for Congress to pass national protections, but he has expressed a lack of will to do so, speaking more often in support of state action.
Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Doug Burgum at the first Republican Presidential primary debate at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 23, 2023. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
“I’ll be a pro-life president … We are running on doing things I know I can accomplish … I’m going to be a leader with the bully pulpit to help local communities and states advance the cause of life. But I really believe right now in our society. It’s really a bottom-up movement and that’s where we’ve had most success — Iowa, South Carolina, Florida — and I think you’re going to continue to see a lot of good battles there,” DeSantis said in a July 2023 interview with Megyn Kelly.
When asked in that interview whether he supports a federal restriction, he said, “the reality is that the country is divided on it.”
“I think there is a federal interest, but I think the reality is that the country is divided on it, you’re not going to see Wisconsin mimic what Texas has, you’re not going to see Pennsylvania mimic what Georgia has. We’re divided. I mean, I haven’t seen Congress move that,” he said at the time.
“I don’t have much confidence that Congress is going to do anything meaningful in this regard, so in a federalist system you have differences of opinion, and that stuff gets filtered out, but clearly, right now, you’re going to see different states go in different directions and I understand that,” he added.
In the debate, DeSantis slammed Democrats for “allow[ing] all the way up to the moment of birth” in some states.
“We’re better than what the Democrats are selling. We are not going to allow abortion all the way up until birth, and we will hold them accountable for their extremism,” he said.
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