Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the second time in a year, revisited his position on abortion limits in the U.S., following severe criticism from his own campaign members. In a podcast with Sage Steele, he endorsed the idea of full-term – aka “up to the point of birth” – abortions.
However, owing to campaign backlash, Kennedy pivoted, posting on social media that abortion legality should be upheld to a specific number of weeks, thereafter imposing restrictions.
Abortion has been a notoriously divisive issue in America, but actually I see an emerging consensus — abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter. Even in the reddest of red states, voters reject total abortion bans. And on the other…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 11, 2024
“Even in the reddest of red states, voters reject total abortion bans,” Kennedy tweeted, adding: “And on the other end, almost no one supports gruesome third-trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother.”
Kennedy’s shift came after Angela Stanton King, a campaign adviser, expressed shock at his backing for late-term abortions.
Even Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, shared that she wasn’t privy to his initial perspective. She insisted that Kennedy believed in imposing abortion limits.
The campaign subsequently issued a statement stating that Kennedy believed in the mother’s final decision-making right, creating yet another contradiction.
Kennedy’s tendency to alter his stance on abortion was observed previously when he initially supported a federal abortion ban after three months, only to retract this support mere hours later.
