Republicans have moved away from having a unified message on abortion, and Michigan Rep. John James — who has a long history of making ardently anti-abortion statements — is no exception.
James, one of the most vulnerable House Republicans up for reelection, has been noticeably quiet on abortion as he runs this year. Increasingly, the party is parroting former President Donald Trump’s stance that abortion should be left up to the states. During a recent Detroit TV roundtable earlier this month, when asked where he stood on leaving abortion policy to the states or implementing a national 15-week ban, James demurred and said he believed that abortion policy was already a done deal in Michigan.
“People in the state of Michigan already decided that no party, no person, no president would decide that for Michigan,” James said during the roundtable, referring to a 2022 proposal that enshrined abortion rights into the state constitution. “Despite the fearmongering that you hear on the left, the fact of the matter is that abortion is enshrined in our Constitution.”