The sudden spate of state laws — and Trump's weekend reaction — has ratcheted up the prominence of the issue of reproductive rights in the 2020 presidential campaigns.
Several of nearly two dozen Democrats running for their party's nomination chided the GOP for inserting government into a decision they contend women should be free to make — and that public opinion supports.
Speaking on Fox News Democratic presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar said the Alabama restrictions, signed into law last week by Governor Kay Ivey, R, are "dangerous".
"And when I talk to people, whether they are pro-choice or they are personally opposed to abortion, a lot of them . . . don't think we should go this direction," Klobuchar said.
Two other 2020 contenders, Montana Governor Steve Bullock and Senator Bernie Sanders, both said a woman should be free to decide whether to have an abortion — in consultation, if she wants, with her doctor and people close to her. "What people are doing, sadly, is creating a political issue out of a medical issue," Sanders said on NBC.
Speaking on CBS, presidential contender Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said: "I hope America's women are paying attention because President Trump has started a war on America's women. And if it's a fight he wants to have, it's a fight he's going to have, and he's going to lose."
The most recent poll on the issue by the Kaiser Family Foundation, conducted in late April, found that two-thirds of the public wants Roe vs Wade, the 1973 decision legalising abortion, to remain in place. Slightly more than half of Republicans disagree.
Trump also cast his position on abortion in the context of his effort to win a second term. "We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020," the President wrote. "If we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear."
He alluded to the two justices he nominated to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, writing that they and "Federal Judges (many more to come)" are part of "a whole new & positive attitude about the Right to Life."
Trump also referred to the so-called Mexico City policy, a rule he reinstated the week he took office in 2017 that blocks US aid to foreign organisations that use money from other sources to discuss or perform abortions. The rule originated in 1984. Since then, it has been reversed each time a Democrat has come into the White House and restored by every Republican president.
Since his campaign, Trump has championed the causes of Christian conservatives, including their opposition to abortion, even though he has not always held that belief. Two decades ago, he told an interviewer that he was "very pro-choice," saying, "I hate the concept of abortion . . . but you still — I just believe in choice."
Among his Administration's actions, federal health officials in February rewrote rules for the federal Title X family-planning programme to prevent organisations from receiving grants if they provide abortion or refer patients for abortions. Like several steps the Administration has taken that appeal to social conservatives, the rule has been blocked temporarily by federal judges while lawsuits against the change play out in court.
In addition to Alabama's new law, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio recently adopted statutes that, once they take effect, will ban abortions after doctors can first detect a fetal heartbeat — before many women realise they are pregnant.
Missouri approved legislation that outlaws abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy; like Alabama's, the bill does not provide for exceptions in instances of rape or incest. It is expected to be signed into law by Missouri Governor Mike Parson, R.
Trump tweeted his view two days after Congress' top two Republicans also distanced themselves from the Alabama law, even though they oppose abortion.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the new law "goes further than I believe," while a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he has long supported exceptions in instances of rape, incest or when a woman's life is endangered by pregnancy.
Today, Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton echoed that view.
