- Former VP Mike Pence thinks the conservative movement should push for more abortion bans.
- More abortion restrictions are "profoundly more important than any short-term politics," Pence told RCP.
Former Vice President Mike Pence believes that conservatives should advocate for more bans on abortion despite significant backlash to the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The conservative movement continuing to push national and state abortion bans "is profoundly more important than any short-term politics," Pence, a likely 2024 presidential candidate, told Real Clear Politics in an interview ahead of a Tuesday gala hosted by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion rights group.
"I welcome any and all efforts to advance the cause of life in state capitals or in the nation's capital," Pence said of federal legislation to institute a national abortion ban. "And I have every confidence that the next Republican president, whoever that may be, will stand for the right to life."
The Supreme Court's late June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health overturned nearly 50 years of abortion protections in Roe v. Wade, and sent the issue of abortion back to each state to decide. But some Republicans, like Pence, want to go even further.
On Tuesday, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a bill that would ban abortion nationwide, with some exceptions, after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The introduction of the legislation, which comes amid mounting backlash to the overturning of Roe, blindsided and rankled many of Graham's Republican colleagues in the Senate.
"I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said when asked about Graham's bill.
But Pence, one of the most prominent evangelical politicians in the country and a longtime anti-abortion advocate, still told RCP he believes the enthusiasm from anti-abortion Americans will surpass anger from Democrats and supporters of abortion rights.
"It is imperative that Republicans and conservatives resolve, here and now, that we will not shrink from the fight," Pence said.
The anti-abortion movement successfully played the long game to overturn Roe v. Wade — and Pence believes that conservatives need to do the same to ban abortion at the state and national levels.
Republicans "must recognize that it may take us as long to restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state as it took us to overturn Roe v. Wade," Pence told RCP.
Over a dozen Republican-controlled states have enacted six-week or total abortion bans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, meaning that a national 15 or 20-week abortion ban would restrict the procedure in blue and purple states where abortion remains legal.
West Virginia, one of the states where abortion became functionally inaccessible due to clinic closures following the Dobbs decision, became the latest state to pass a near-total abortion ban on Tuesday.