Donald Trump isn’t so sure about abortion. Will religious Republicans vote for him? | Opinion

Donald Trump’s grip on faith-and-values Christian voters is suddenly shaky.

Some of his true believers now seem stunned, particularly after he said the other day that Florida’s six-week restriction on abortion is “too short” and that the government should provide free in vitro fertilization.

In Texas, where the Republican Party is officially calling for abortion to be punished the same as child murder, one influential activist shared comments on social media last week saying Trump is betraying conservatives and should “feel political consequences.”

“If Trump loses, it will be his own fault,” wrote lawyer Bradley Pierce of Liberty Hill-based Abolish Abortion Texas. His group persuaded Texas Republicans to call for making abortion a crime punishable by the death penalty.

National anti-abortion activist Lila Rose of Virginia-based Live Action was blunt: “If you don’t stand for pro-life principles, you don’t get pro-life votes.”

The shocks began Aug. 23, when Trump wrote on his TruthSocial account that he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”

Then Trump enthusiastically welcomed pro-choice independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat, to his campaign.

That was followed by vice presidential nominee JD Vance saying that Trump definitely will veto a federal abortion ban.

Tony Perkins, a national evangelical leader for 20 years as president of the Family Research Council, wrote on social media: “Trump is not only suppressing his own support, he is going to hurt the vast majority of Republican candidates who are 100% pro-life.”

Trump already had been disavowing any connection between his campaign and Project 2025, the arrogant Heritage Foundation plan for a new president to immediately make America more religious and conservative.

This fracture with Christian conservatives began at the Republican National Convention, when Trump supporters rewrote the party platform to call for leaving abortion law up to the states.

So far, most anti-abortion leaders are preaching more caution than rebellion.

“I think the vast majority of pro-life people are savvy enough to understand that Donald Trump is not an activist on the life issue, but he beats the alternative [Democrat Kamala Harris] by a mile — and then some,” Kyleen Wright of Arlington-based Texans for Life wrote by email.

In Plano, Prestonwood Baptist pastor Jack Graham was a Trump spiritual adviser in 2016.

Graham wrote on X.com: “Instead of criticizing Trump over a national abortion ban now let’s do what we can do to persuade the electorate today to make abortion not only illegal but unthinkable.”

On a recent podcast, Fort Worth pastor and state Rep. Nate Schatzline said, “I love President Trump ... but the reality is, we are not electing a pastor.” Christians should support Trump because he will “expose the swamp,” Schatzline said.

Even nationally known evangelist Lance Wallnau of Keller, at the center of an apocalyptic nationwide church’s campaign for religion in government, wrote Aug. 26 on social media that “our vote is not about a person but about the principles that shape our future.”

SMU professor Matthew Wilson of the Center for Faith and Learning wrote Trump needs to be “very careful” after wandering on the issue and “rambling about numbers of weeks.”

“He quite clearly lacks any real core conviction on the subject one way or the other,” Wilson wrote.

“But conservative Christians — especially evangelicals, but also Catholics — are a core constituency. ... It’s not like they are going to vote for Kamala Harris, who appears to genuinely despise them, but if they are unenthusiastic and vote at lower rates than energized Democratic constituencies, it could cost Trump critical support in states like North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

“Bottom line,” Wilson wrote, “is that Trump would do best to stay out of state-level abortion policy. ... There is nothing to be gained by off-the-cuff opining about thresholds of fetal viability and rights.”

Last year, months after his Supreme Court nominees joined to overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump declared himself “the most pro-life president ever.”

The question is whether he wants to be that president again.

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