Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence, during a campaign stop in Michigan on Thursday, said that if he and Donald Trump are elected to the White House, "We'll see Roe vs. Wade consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs."
The Indiana governor told a group gathered in Grand Rapids that the next president will likely select many Supreme Court justices during his or her time in office, The Los Angeles Times reported. Pence's comments came after assurances that Trump would pick a strict constitutionalist to replace the late Antonin Scalia.
"While we're choosing a president for the next four years, this next president will make decisions that will impact our Supreme Court for the next 40," he said. "Go tell your neighbors and your friends, for the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of sanctity of life, for the sake of our Second Amendment, for the sake of all our other God-given liberties, we must insure the next president appointing justices to the Supreme Court is Donald Trump."
Earlier this year, as governor, Pence signed various abortion restrictions into law in Indiana, including a ban on abortions for women whose children will be born with disabilities.
During a town hall meeting in Green Bay on March 30, Trump claimed that there should be some sort of punishment for women getting abortions. (He also said that men who conceived those children should not be punished.)
The Trump campaign later released a statement claiming its candidate meant doctors who performed abortions should be punished.
"The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb," the statement read. "My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions."
That Trump doesn't like abortion has always been clear. During a 1999 interview on "Meet the Press," he told Tim Russert, "I hate the concept of abortion," but "I still believe in choice."
--Eder Campuzano
503.221.4344
@edercampuzano
ecampuzano@oregonian.com