US President Trump joins abortion debate with an eye on 2020 elections

US President Donald Trump has joined the latest Republican push to overturn a decades-old Supreme Court ruling that makes abortion legal, saying he is pro-life but supports exceptions for rape, incest and mother’s life unlike the more stridently conservative sections of his party.

In a new conservative push predicated on the hope that the new Trump-created conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench will overturn the earlier decision, Republican-ruled states have been enacting severely restrictive laws banning abortion from the detection of fetal heartbeat and make no exceptions.

“I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions - Rape, Incest and protecting the life of the mother,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday and went on to cite late American President Ronald Reagan, a sort of gold-standard for Republican leaders in his defense, “the same position taken by Ronald Reagan”.

And in a disapproving nod to the extreme positions taken by other Republicans on the issues, he appealed for unity with an eye on the 2020 elections, when the United States will hold its next presidential, congressional and state elections. “We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020. If we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear.”

Republicans have felt encouraged to seek the overturn of Roe versus Wade, a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that guarantees a woman’s right to abortion, by the appointment of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that has given conservatives a 5-4 majority on the nine-member Supreme Court bench.

The rush of new legislations — by Republican-ruled Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Utah — are meant to provoke a legal challenge that could send the issue back to the court’s conservative-majority bench.

Alabama’s law, enacted last week, has been called the most restrictive. It makes exceptions for the health of the mother and “fetal anomalies”, when the fetus is unlikely to survive outside the womb, but, unlike President Trump, not for rape or incest. Mississippi has banned abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, and also makes no exception for rape or incest. And Georgia prohibits pregnancy termination from the time of detection of the fetal heartbeat, six to seven weeks into pregnancy usually.

Abortion is allowed in the United Sates from 2-4 weeks to 24 weeks. Exceptions are allowed for after 24 weeks in rare cases for medical complications.

India permits abortion till the 12th week on the recommendation of one doctor and till the 20th if approved by two doctors, and a court for after that period.