Trump will speak to Christian group that calls for abortion to be 'eradicated'

INDIANAPOLIS -- Donald Trump on Monday will make a virtual appearance before a Christian group that calls for abortion to be “eradicated entirely," as the presumptive Republican nominee again takes on an issue that Democrats want to make a focus of this year's presidential election.

The former president pre-recorded a video that will be shown at an event hosted by The Danbury Institute, which is meeting in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Danbury Institute, an association of churches, Christians and organizations, says on its website that it believes “that the greatest atrocity facing our generation today is the practice of abortion” and it “must be ended.”

“We will not rest until it is eradicated entirely,” the group said.

Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the overturning of a federally guaranteed right to abortion — having nominated three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — but has resisted supporting a national abortion ban and says he wants to leave the issue to the states.

Though the Danbury Institute advertised Trump as a virtual speaker at the event, his campaign clarified Monday that Trump had pre-taped a brief video. In a transcript of his remarks provided by the campaign, Trump thanks the audience for their “tremendous devotion to God and Country.”

“These are difficult times for our nation, and your work is so important. We can’t afford to have anyone sit on the sidelines—now is the time for us all to pull together and stand up for our values and our freedoms,” Trump said, according to the transcript. “We have to defend religious liberty, free speech, innocent life, and the heritage and traditions that built America into the greatest nation in the history of the world. I know that each of you is protecting those values every day—and I hope we’ll be defending them side by side for the next four years.”

Both the Southern Baptists who will hear Trump on Monday and Republicans at large are split on abortion politics, with some calling for immediate, complete abortion bans and others more open to incremental tactics. Polls over the last several years have found a majority of Americans support some access to abortion, and abortion-rights groups have won several statewide votes since Roe was overturned, including in conservative-led states like Kansas and Ohio.

Like the GOP, the Southern Baptist Convention has moved steadily to the right since the 1980s, and its members were in the vanguard of the wider religious movement that strongly supported Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Trump. The Conservative Baptist Network, one of the event’s sponsors, wants to move the conservative denomination even further to the right.

Although they criticized President Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior in the 1990s, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals have supported Trump. That has continued despite allegations of sexual misconduct, multiple divorces and now his conviction on 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. Trump will give his address on the same day he appears virtually for a required pre-sentencing interview with New York probation officers.

Many Southern Baptists say they see him as the only alternative to a Democratic agenda they abhor.

H. Sharayah Colter, spokesperson for The Danbury Institute, said in a statement that the presidential race was a “binary choice” and said Trump has “demonstrated a willingness to protect the value of life even when politically unpopular.”

And Albert Mohler, longtime president of the denomination’s flagship seminary and once an outspoken Clinton critic, wrote a column after Trump's conviction attacking Democrats for supporting transgender rights.

“Say what you will about Donald Trump and his sex scandals, he doesn’t confuse male and female,” wrote Mohler, who is a listed speaker for Monday's event, along with others from the denomination's right flank.

Trump has said he would not sign a national abortion ban and in an interview on the Fox News Channel last week, when commenting on the way some states are enshrining abortion rights and others are restricting them, said that “the people are deciding and in many ways, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”

For over a year until he announced his position this spring, Trump had backed away from endorsing any specific national limit on abortion, unlike many other Republicans who eventually ended their presidential campaigns. Trump has repeatedly said the issue can be politically tricky and suggested he would “negotiate” a policy that would include exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.

Democrats and President Joe Biden’s campaign have tried to tie Trump to the most conservative state-level bans on abortion as well as a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that would have restricted access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility procedures that are broadly popular.

“Four more years of Donald Trump means empowering organizations like the Danbury Institute who want to ban abortion nationally and punish women who have abortions,” said Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign. “Trump brags that he is responsible for overturning Roe, he thinks the extreme state bans happening now because of him are ‘working very brilliantly,’ and if he’s given the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban. These are the stakes this November.”

When asked about his appearance before the Danbury Institute, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump “has been very clear: he supports the rights of states to determine the laws on this issue and supports the three exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.”

Leavitt also said, “President Trump is committed to addressing groups with diverse opinions on all of the issues, as evidenced by his recent speech at the Libertarian Convention, his meetings with the unions, and his efforts to campaign in diverse neighborhoods across the country.”

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Price reported from New York.