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With just over a month to go before the 2024 election, Melania Trump is splitting with the Republican Party's stance on abortion rights.
In a video posted to social media to promote her forthcoming memoir, the former first lady declares that "individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard without a doubt."
"There is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom," Trump says in the video. "What does 'my body, my choice' really mean?"
According to an excerpt of the book obtained by The Guardian, Melania Trump declares full-throated support for abortion rights, writing that she's always believed that "restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body."
"Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?" Melania Trump writes, according to the outlet. "A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes."
It's the first time the former first lady has weighed in on the topic, and it comes as former President Donald Trump has sought to moderate his stance on abortion during this year's election cycle.
Trump has embraced a "states rights" approach to the issue, saying that he supports each state determining its own abortion laws. He even declared earlier this week that he would veto a federal abortion ban.
Democrats have long argued that Trump can't be trusted on this stance, pointing to his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, leading to abortion bans in states across the country.
"Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump's husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives," said Sarafine Chitika, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign. "Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women's access to reproductive health care."
Vice President Kamala Harris has pledged to sign legislation to reinstate the right to an abortion nationwide, recently reaffirming her support for eliminating the Senate's 60-vote "filibuster" rule to do so.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Melania Trump's memoir is set to be released on October 8. In previous promotional videos, she has defended her past nude modeling work and suggested that there was a conspiracy behind her husband's attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally in July.
