By James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Melania Trump, the wife of Donald Trump, said in a video on Thursday that there was "no room for compromise" on a woman's right to "individual freedom" – a position on abortion rights at apparent odds with that of her husband, the Republican U.S. presidential candidate.
Her comments come as Trump and his running mate, U.S. Senator JD (NASDAQ:JD) Vance, have attempted to soften the hard edges of the Republican Party's position on abortion, a major obstacle in winning over female voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
"Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard," she says in the video that she posted to X to promote her memoir that is due to be released next week.
"Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth, individual freedom. What does 'my body, my choice' really mean?"
Melania Trump, a former model who was first lady during Trump's 2017-2021 term and has been mostly absent so far on the campaign trail, has a history of offering cryptic statements to the public. In 2018, on a trip to the U.S. border, she wore a jacket that bore the slogan "I really don't care, do you?" that went without explanation.
But in an excerpt from the memoir published by the British site the Guardian on Wednesday, she was more explicit about her position on abortion rights.
"A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes," she wrote.
Trump said he and Melania spoke about the issue and he told her to write "what you believe."
"I said, 'You have to stick with your heart.' I've said that to everybody: you have to go with your heart," Trump told Fox News. "There are some people that are very, very far right of the issue - meaning without exceptions and then there are other people who view it a little bit differently than that."
Trump had previously taken credit for appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who helped in 2022 to overturn the seminal abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade. But since winning the Republican primary earlier this year, he has sought to offer a more nuanced stance on the issue as he seeks the support of moderate and independent voters.
He has decried six-week abortion bans as too restrictive, said he would not support a national ban on the procedure, and called for exceptions on any ban to include incidents of rape and incest or to protect the health of the mother.
During the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, as Vance tried to soften his own harsh stance on the issue, Trump posted online that he would veto any attempt by Congress to impose a national ban.
But Trump also has said individual states are free to restrict abortion as they choose, even if comes down to sharply restricting access, and several Republican-controlled states have done just that.
At a rally last month, Trump said that if he is elected, women "will no longer be thinking about abortion."
His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has played up her support for abortion rights and has advocated for a full restoration of constitutional protections.
Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said: "Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump's husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump abortion ban."
Opinion polls consistently show that a large majority of Americans support abortion rights.