Former first lady Melania Trump reveals in a forthcoming memoir that she supports a woman’s right to choose.
Trump shockingly says she’s ‘carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.’
The Guardian obtained a copy of her book Melania, which will be released Tuesday, and reported Wednesday that she holds very different views on abortion than former President Donald Trump, the current Republican nominee.
‘It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,’ the former first lady wrote.
‘Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?’ she asked. ‘A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.’
Former first lady Melania Trump (left) revealed in her forthcoming memoir that, for years, she’s been pro-choice. The admission comes as former President Donald Trump (right) has been widely credited with the erosion of abortion rights in the United States
‘Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,’ Trump said.
‘I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life,’ she added.
The eyebrow-raising admission comes after she says in the book that ‘occasional political disagreements between me and my husband’ are ‘part of our relationship.’
‘[B]ut I believed in addressing them privately rather than publicly challenging him,’ she said.
Later in the book she explains why she’s supportive of abortion rights.
‘I have always believed it is critical for people to take care of themselves first,’ she said. ‘It’s a very straightforward concept; in fact, we are all born with a set of fundamental rights, including the right to enjoy our lives.’
‘We are all entitled to maintain a gratifying and dignified existence,’ she continued. ‘This common-sense approach applies to a woman’s natural right to make decisions about her own body and health.’
Trump has been widely credited for setting the table that allowed for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that federally gave women a right to an abortion.
The Republican nominee appointed three of the conservative justices who signed on to the 2022 Dobbs decision, killing Roe.
While that was cheered on by the anti-abortion wing of the Republican Party, it was also the former president who realized that the GOP was now in political peril over that stance.
Since then, abortion rights ballot initiatives have been successful and Republicans underperformed during the 2022 midterms, likely because abortion was such a hot issue.
Trump has struggled to find his footing on the issue.
In August he told DailyMail.com that he might vote to end Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Floridians are being asked to vote ‘yes’ to overturn the six-week limit.
‘I want more than six weeks,’ he said at Mar-a-Lago. I think six weeks is a mistake.’
Days later he said he would vote ‘no’ on the referendum instead, after his comments irritated anti-abortion activists in his party.
More recently, Trump finally said he would veto a federal abortion ban.
His rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have pushed that if Trump is allowed back in office abortion rights could be gone nationwide.
