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Donald Trump returned to the nation’s capital to take a victory lap on the first anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson, reminding conservatives that he named the Supreme Court justices who were pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade.
“I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility,” Mr. Trump said Saturday at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.
“They’d been fighting – good people, strong people, smart people — had been fighting for 50 years, and it never even came close to getting done,” he said. “I don’t believe they’ve ever even taken a vote. They never even came close. It was something that wasn’t going to happen. I got it done.”
Mr. Trump, who is far and away the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, also dinged his Republican rivals who trumpet their pro-life bona fides before conservative audiences, saying his record tops them all.
“A woman stood up and said, ‘This guy [Trump] ended Roe v. Wade. How the hell can you go against him?’ And I sort of said that myself, actually,” Mr. Trump said as the audience laughed and cheered. “But I’m proud to be the most pro-life president in American history.”
The Supreme Court ended the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide with its June 24, 2022, ruling in Dobbs. The vote was 6-3. Three of the six justices making up the majority were Trump nominees.
The annual conference featured many of the candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Mr. Trump’s rivals strived to test his hold on the religious right that is a crucial voting bloc in the GOP primary contests.
Mr. Pence, a devout evangelical Christian, called on Mr. Trump and the sprawling field of GOP presidential hopefuls to rally behind a minimum 15-week federal abortion ban. Mr. Trump has been noncommittal about a federal ban.
“The battle for life is far from over,” said Mr. Pence. “We have not come to the end of our cause, we have simply come to the end of the beginning.
