Kirsten Gillibrand Accuses Trump of Starting ‘War on Women’ With Abortion Bans

Presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand isn’t going to shy away from fighting for reproductive rights on the campaign trail. The Democratic senator from New York accused Donald Trump and his partisans in the GOP of starting “a war on America’s women” with the slate of recent de facto abortion bans passed in Republican-led states. 

“This is nothing short of an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom, an effort to take away our basic human rights and civil rights, and make no mistake, the 30 states that are trying to unwind abortion rights are trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade,” she said on Face The Nation. “It’s nothing more complex than that. And they do not believe that women should have the right to make the most intimate, personal life and death decisions.” 

Gillibrand added that the president’s decision to stand behind the laws in his public statements would come back to bite him. 

“I hope America’s women are paying attention because President Trump has started a war on America’s women,” she said. “And if it’s a fight he wants to have, it’s a fight he’s going to have, and he’s going to lose.”

Trump wrote on Twitter over the weekend that he was happy to see the laws passing, though he seemed to disagree with the most-regressive aspects of the bans. He noted how his stacking of the judiciary with pro-life judges would help protect the laws as they made their way through the courts.