Senator J.D. Vance, Echoing Donald Trump, Is Claiming He’s Alright With Abortion Pills

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning, Ohio Senator and vice presidential hopeful J.D. Vance said he supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone—echoing what Donald Trump said just over a week ago on the debate stage.

“On the question of the abortion pill,” Vance began, “the Supreme Court made a decision in saying that the American people should have access to that medication, Donald Trump has supported that opinion, I support that opinion.”

He was referring to the court’s recent rejection of an attempt to limit access to mifepristone—which is safer than both penicillin and Viagra. Their ruling still left open the possibility for future attacks on the medication, which accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in 2023 and has been a lifeline for pregnant people in states with strict bans.

When asked by CNN debate moderator Dana Bash if he would block abortion medication, the former president said, “first of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill. And I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it.” Earlier that week, Trump told a crowd of evangelicals, “You have to go with your heart. You have to also remember you have to get elected.”

With the Republican National Convention kicking off on July 15 in Milwaukee, those on the right seem to be trying to get on the same page about how they should talk about abortion—which about 1 in 8 voters have said is the most important issue driving their vote.

Vance’s response came after Meet the Press host Kristen Welker asked the senator about his position on Project 2025—a GOP playbook for how another four years of Trump should go. The project is organized by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and is made up of a coalition of other conservative organizations. Despite former Trump administration alums like housing secretary Ben Carson, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought being involved in Project 2025, the former president has attempted to distance himself from the playbook, claiming he has “no idea who is behind it.”

“Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world,” Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” reads. “Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Constitution contains no right to an abortion,” it continues, “the FDA is ethically and legally obliged to revisit and withdraw its initial approval.”

“The Heritage Foundation does a lot of good work. It does a lot of things that I disagree with, a lot of things that I agree with,” Vance told Welker. “I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes about that 900-page document,” he continued, referring to the mandate. “But he is the person who will determine the agenda into the next administration.”

Vance said he hasn’t gotten the call from Trump asking him to officially run with him. “Most importantly, Kristen, we’re just trying to work to elect Donald Trump. Whoever the vice president is, he’s got a lot of good people he could choose from.”

Previously, Vance has been vehement in his anti-abortion stances.

In 2021, after the Texas legislature passed a near-total abortion ban, Vance heralded the move. “My view on this has been very clear,” he said, “it’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term” but “whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to society.”