Now that J.D. Vance is officially Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, many are curious about his political positions. For instance, does he think that pregnant people should have the right to make decisions about their own bodies? That married couples should be able to divorce if they want to? That the US should support Ukraine? That would be resounding no, no, and no. And his positions on those issues—and others—are somehow even worse in context!
Abortion
Vance is stridently opposed to abortion. In 2021, he argued against exceptions for incest and rape, saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and adding: “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.” Later, he vaguely expressed support for “reasonable exceptions,” and has graciously said there should be an exception if the mother’s life is in danger. While running for Senate in 2022, his campaign website read “Ban Abortion.” During a debate with Democratic representative Tim Ryan, Vance said he was fine with a national abortion ban, saying, “Some minimum national standard is totally fine with me.”
Vance has also compared abortion to slavery.
Divorce
Vance has suggested people should stay in violent marriages for the sake of their kids. Speaking to Pacifica Christian High School in 2021, he claimed that divorce inflicts terrible harm on children and that it would be better for people in unhappy marriages to stay together, even if said marriages are “violent.” Vance told the audience: “My grandparents had an incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways. But they never got divorced. They were together to the end, till death do us part—that was a really important thing to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the ’70s or ’80s. And I think that probably, I was personally, and a lot the kids in my community who grew up in my generation, personally suffered from the fact that a lot of moms and dads saw marriage as a basic contract, right? Like any other business deal, once it becomes no longer good for one of the parties or both of the parties, you just dissolve it and go on to a new business relationship. But that recognition that marriage was sacred I think was a really powerful thing that held a lot of families together. And when it disappeared, unfortunately, I think a lot of kids suffered.”
Vance writes in his book, Hillbilly Elegy, that his grandfather was a “violent drunk” and his grandmother a “violent nondrunk.” In one anecdote, he says that before he was born, his grandmother told his grandfather that she would kill him if he ever returned home drunk again—and when he did, she tried. “Mamaw, never one to tell a lie, calmly retrieved a gasoline canister from the garage, poured it all over her husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his chest. When Papaw burst into flames, their 11-year-old daughter jumped into action to put out the fire and save his life.”
IVF
Despite praising Hungary’s policies that incentivize families to have children, Vance voted against a Democratic bill that would have protected access to IVF.
LGBTQ+ rights
Vance wants to ban gender-affirming care for minors and last year introduced legislation that would make providing such care a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison. In 2022, he stated he “strongly disagree[s]” that gender identity and sexual orientation should be protected classes in nondiscrimination laws. He said that if he were in office at the time, he would have opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, which enshrined the right of same-sex and interracial couples to marry.
Ukraine
In a podcast with Steve Bannon in 2022, Vance said, “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine. I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
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