Mother Jones; Stephen Maturen/Getty
Lots of people seem to dislike the views of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) these days: Jennifer Aniston, Congressional Republicans, and…maybe even Donald Trump?
Now hundreds of medical professionals from Vance’s home state of Ohio have also joined that list. On Tuesday, more than 260 doctors from the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights—a nonpartisan group whose members initiated and helped draft the state’s ballot measure securing the constitutional right to abortion in Ohio last year—condemned Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate, citing Vance’s lengthy anti-abortion record. A letter from the group—signed by physicians who practice a variety of specialties, not just OB/GYNs who perform abortions, including pediatrics, family and internal medicine, and child and adolescent psychology—outlined the dangers of what it calls “the Trump-Vance anti-reproductive freedom agenda.”
“Ohio proved to America last year that voters will not stand by as politicians such as J.D. Vance threaten our rights and freedoms,” says the letter, which Mother Jones is the first to report. “This coming November, millions of Americans across the country are going to join us in firmly declaring that we will not give JD Vance any further opportunities to strip away our rights.”
The letter comes as Trump’s campaign has dodged calls to define his stance on abortion, an evasion tactic that has seen him land all over the map on the issue, from his pledge to leave abortion rights “to the states”—after appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe—to Vance trying to walk back his prior calls for a national abortion ban. But despite Trump’s efforts to avoid clarifying questions about his position on threats to abortion access via the Comstock Act and fetal personhood, there are a lot of reasons to believe the GOP would, indeed, try to ban abortion nationwide if Trump is re-elected. Tuesday’s letter cited some of these indicators and Vance’s support for them, including:
- Vance’s support for Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, that outlines plans for a second Trump term—including recommending the Department of Justice use the Comstock Act to prosecute providers who mail abortion pills to patients (Vance also went on record last year stating his support for this proposal) and recommending the Department of Health and Human Services be replaced with a “Department of Life” in order to reject “the notion that abortion is health care.”
- Vance’s prior comments against rape and incest exceptions for abortion bans, in which he dismissed those traumatic assaults as “inconveniences,” adding, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right.” (Trump, for his part, claims to support exceptions for “rape, incest and life of the mother”—despite appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe, allowing states to ban abortion without exceptions if they so choose.)
Dr. Lauren Beene, a pediatrician who signed the letter and is a co-founder and executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, told me that she sees Vance as a bigger threat to abortion rights than Trump because he has been consistent in his opposition to them: “Of all people to have second in command to Donald Trump, who is trying his best to pretend that he is more supportive of reproductive freedom than he is, to choose JD Vance is very telling as far as the true goals of their presidential mission.”
“Both Trump and JD Vance are huge risks [to abortion rights],” she added, “but the combination of the two is just terrible.”
The letter also pointed to Vance’s opposition to Ohio’s abortion rights ballot measure. After it passed in November, he called it a “gut punch…politically dumb and morally repugnant.” (As my colleagues Madison Pauly and Ari Berman chronicled last year, anti-abortion Republicans went to great lengths to prevent the measure from passing last year—and from even coming up for a vote.) And while the measure’s passage was a major win for Ohioans, allowing access to abortion up until the point of fetal viability and allowing abortions later in pregnancy when necessary to protect the patient’s life or health, the letter notes that barriers to abortion access remain: “Threats abound from Ohio’s gerrymandered State Legislature, State and National Supreme Courts, and now, with J.D. Vance joining the presidential race alongside Donald Trump, our patients’ access to necessary and lifesaving reproductive healthcare is at grave risk.” Plus, Beene added, “obstructionist laws” remain on the books in the state—including a 24-hour waiting period mandated before obtaining an abortion, which is currently being challenged in court.
In response to a request for comment on the letter, William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, told Mother Jones that Vance “agrees with President Trump’s view that abortion policy should be decided by the states,” adding that Vance also “supports reasonable exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”
Martin added: “These desperate smear tactics won’t change the fact that Kamala Harris has no record to run on except for the failure and destruction of the current Administration and been flip-flopping on every single issue possible since she became the de facto nominee. The American people, and particularly the great State of Ohio, are going to soundly reject her weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda come November.”
A public condemnation from hundreds of doctors over Vance’s anti-abortion views comes as poll after poll shows most Americans disapprove of the Dobbs decision and support abortion access in all or most cases.
As the letter states: “Vance’s extremist views are objectively out of touch with his own Ohio voters, and with the American people.”
