This weekend’s segment of “Saturday Night Live,” mocked former President Trump for his position on abortion, in which he asserted laws on the procedure should be left to the states.
“This week, Donald Trump said that he supports abortion laws being decided by the states instead of the federal government,” SNL “Weekend Update,” co-host Michael Che said. “But why stop there? Why not go even smaller and leave it up to the counties or the city?”
“Or even better, take the government out of it completely and leave the choice about what women can do with their bodies and a person who knows what they could do with them the best — their husbands,” he continued.
In a video statement released last week, Trump said he was proud to have appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that had allowed legal abortions across the country.
But he expressed support for exceptions to laws forbidding abortion that would allow them in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life, and he did not back a ban on abortions after 15 or 16 weeks.
He also took aim at whom he called “radical Democrats,” claiming the party supports up to and beyond the ninth month.
“In a view on Truth Social, Donald Trump falsely said that Democrats support abortion up to the ninth month and beyond, saying the baby is executed at birth,” “Weekend Update” co-host Colin Jost quipped. “But he only thinks that happens because when Trump was a baby, a bunch of time travelers showed up trying to kill him.”
The former president’s stance regarding state authority over the issue sparked a flurry of attacks from Democrats, who argued Trump was siding with states that had enacted severe restrictions on abortion and imposed punishments for doctors who performed the procedure.
On the other side of the aisle, some conservatives criticized Trump’s choice to decline the endorsement of a national 15-week abortion ban.
Later last week, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law that bars patients from receiving an abortion in nearly all cases. It also jails physicians who illegally perform the procedure and supersedes the state’s 15-week abortion limit.
Jost nodded to the state’s decision, telling the crowd, “Now reinstating laws from 1864 isn’t the worst thing for me because I’m a white landowner and a proud Freemason.”
“It’s probably not great to adopt health care rules from a time where the only two things doctors prescribed were prayer and cocaine…Saturday and Sunday,” he continued. “Back then, if you didn’t want to keep your baby, your only option was to give it to Rumpelstiltskin.”
Tyler Mitchell