Slate magazine wants tips to a story it thinks it already knows: President-elect Donald Trump’s personal involvement with abortion.
On Monday, Slate made a special plea to its readers. “Do You Have Information About Abortions Trump May Have Paid For?” the online magazine’s headline read. “Let Us Know.”
To begin her story (if one could call it that), associate editor L. V. Anderson pointed to Trump’s recent 60 Minutes interview where he “reiterated his intention to severely curtail abortion rights.” In other words, where he confirmed he would appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices.
“What makes Trump’s determination to restrict abortion access even more potentially galling is the possibility that Trump himself has paid for women’s abortions,” she insisted.
Anderson continued by listing “what we know” about Trump and abortion. In 1999, Trump called himself “very pro-choice,” she wrote, and in 2003, he “alluded to an incident with a previous girlfriend who got pregnant” on the Howard Stern Show.
When Trump found out she was pregnant, he reacted by asking, “Well, what are we going to do about this?” That question, Anderson pushed, “could well be read as Trump considering abortion for his girlfriend.”
Anderson’s last clue that Trump may have been personally involved with abortion came when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Trump earlier this year if he had been “involved with anyone who had an abortion.” “Such an interesting question,” he responded to Dowd. “So what’s your next question?”
But Anderson thought she knew the answer.
“[N]o one would be shocked if it turned out that Trump has paid for a partner or family member’s abortion or otherwise supported a close associate’s choice to abort,” she wrote. She only had one problem: “[A]ll we have is speculation, not facts.”
To fix that, she begged Slate readers for help.
“Slate would like to illuminate Trump’s personal history with abortion, which is why we are requesting information on abortions that Trump has paid for or supported,” she wrote. “If you’re in possession of such information, please send it.”
“We want to expose Trump’s hypocrisy, if he is indeed a hypocrite on this issue, in the interest of protecting other women’s reproductive rights,” she reasoned. “If Trump thinks it’s OK for his girlfriends, wives, or family members to get abortions, then his shameful plans to restrict abortion access for other American women will ring even more cynical and opportunistic than they already do.”
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In the past, Slate has boasted a special interest in abortion, from calling abortion “great” and “positive social good” to applauding the “perfect” abortion scene in ABC’s Scandal.
