Donald Trump Predicted Roe v. Wade Would Be Overturned ‘Automatically’ if Elected

Then-candidate Donald Trump predicted in a 2016 presidential debate with Hillary Clinton that Roe v. Wade would be overturned “automatically” if he were elected.

Responding to the moderator, Chris Wallace, Trump said if the ruling was reversed, laws on the legality of abortion would “go back to the individual states” to decide, which was the law of the nation before Roe v. Wade.

Wallace pressed Trump again on whether he desired Roe v. Wade to be overturned, Trump responded by saying the case would be overturned if he were elected. “That will happen, automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life justices on the Court,” said Trump, if he won the election.

Hillary Clinton responded to a similar question by stating that she supports Roe V. Wade. “I strongly support Roe v. Wade,” she said. “I will defend Roe v. Wade, I will defend a woman’s right to make her own decision.”

Trump won the 2016 election and proceeded to nominate three Supreme Court justices to the bench: Justices Neil Gorsuch (April 8, 2017), Brett Kavanaugh October 6, 2018), and Amy Coney Barrett (October 26, 2020).

On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 court ruling in a massive victory for the pro-life movement. Breitbart News reported on the Supreme Court’s ruling:

The Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade on Friday, holding in the Dobbs case that the Constitution does not include a right to abortion and returning the issue of abortion laws and regulations to state legislatures.

Roe was handed down in 1973 in a 7-2 decision, holding that the U.S. Constitution includes a constitutional right to abortion, despite the fact that abortion is not found in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution, and the nation went more than 180 years without ever noticing it existed. It has been one of the most divisive legal issues in American history.

An early draft of Alito’s opinion leaked in May, the first such leak of a full opinion in the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, leading the left to violent protests, including destroying a pro-life center in Wisconsin, vandalizing churches, and threatening protests at the home of conservatives justices in violation of federal law.

The case is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.