According to critics of Sen. JD Vance, the U.S. vice president-elect once called for a "federal response" to block pregnant women from traveling across state lines to get abortions. For example, an Instagram post shared in late October 2024 made the following claim:
JD Vance has caused controversy with his support for a "federal response" to prevent women from traveling across state lines for abortions. This stance is consistent with his anti-abortion views following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which gave states the power to enforce their own abortion laws. Vance has stopped short of fully endorsing a federal ban, but he's clearly uncomfortable with women traveling to states with less restrictive laws to obtain abortions. His comments suggest that he would support measures to prevent interstate travel for abortions as a way to uphold state bans.
Variations of the claim have emerged on
The rumors originated with comments Vance made on a January 2022 podcast episode, five months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
On that podcast, Vance expressed his support for "abortion to be illegal nationally." He posed a hypothetical scenario in which people seeking abortions in Columbus, Ohio, would travel to California for the procedure with the financial help of high-profile figures such as billionaire George Soros. "If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening?" he asked the hosts. "Hopefully, we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion, and California and the Soroses of the world respect it."
In other words, it was misleading to claim Vance called for a "federal response" to block travel for abortions. Rather, he raised the possibility of such an action while discussing a hypothetical scenario in which rich donors help people travel states for abortions.
Vance's Comments, Transcribed
Vance made the remark on the "What's Left" podcast, a show with political and cultural commentary that was hosted by Pittsburgh-based journalist and lawyer Oliver Bateman and Australian political commentator Aimee Terese from 2020 to 2022.
Snopes accessed the episode, titled "The Work of JD Vance," via Patreon. Since the show's release, Bateman said he and his team removed all episodes from free platforms such as SoundCloud but kept certain episodes behind the Patreon paywall.
In the January 2022 episode, Bateman asked Vance about "the future trajectory of abortion policy in the United States," and Vance responded (around the 41:26 mark):
Look, I guess I'm sympathetic to the view that like — OK look, here's a situation: Let's say Roe v. Wade is overruled, Ohio bans abortion, you know, in 2022, let's say 2024, and then, you know, every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. Of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity. That's kind of creepy, right? […] If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening? Because it's really creepy. And, you know, I'm pretty sympathetic to that, actually. So, you know, hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion, and California and the Soroses of the world respect it.
In other words, Vance spoke hypothetically about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Ohio banning abortion and wealthy individuals funding large-scale efforts to transport women to states where abortions were accessible. Vance characterized such scenarios as "creepy" and raised the idea of a "federal response" to prevent such traveling from happening.
However, his comments did not explicitly call for a "federal response," nor did they advocate for banning or prosecuting people who travel across state lines for abortions.
The Claim Made Headlines in 2024
After that, the Kamala HQ X account, which described itself as "the official rapid response page of Vice President Harris' presidential campaign," shared a post featuring the podcast sound bite. That post has received 3 million views, as of this writing, and claimed that "JD Vance calls for a 'federal response' to block women in red states from traveling to another state to get an abortion."
JD Vance said this on a podcast hosted by a Twitter user he follows who calls for putting "misogynists back in the Oval Office" and says "we need to stop normalising consent" https://t.co/ElrkbAf5VJ pic.twitter.com/BEwX61QfpB
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 26, 2024
After Kamala HQ shared the podcast audio, several media outlets reported the snippet as evidence of Vance calling for a "federal response" to block people from traveling for abortions. For example, TMZ asserted at the top of its article that
Vance's Comments Since the 2022 Podcast
Snopes reached out to Vance's team for a response to the claim. A spokesperson declined to comment but referred to an Oct. 31, 2024, episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on which Vance was a guest. During the episode, when Rogan expressed concerns about
I don't like
the idea [of monitoring women and imposing travel restrictions], to be clear. I've not heard of this — maybe as a, as like a possibility — but not as something that actually exists in the law. But I've not heard of somebody being arrested. And I don't like the idea of arresting people for moving about the country. [… ] I've heard it as a threat that — but I don't like the idea to be clear of people getting arrested for freely moving around the country. […]
I think the honest answer is that, what we're doing is, we're trying to figure out what is the right balance between autonomy and life and I say this as somebody who, when Ohio
made this decision [to protect abortion rights in the state], I campaigned very aggressively for the more pro-life position in the state of Ohio. And my side lost. In fact, we got our a**es kicked. We we lost 60-40 and I took some learning from that.
In other words, years after making the in-question comments, Vance said he does not support imposing travel restrictions on people seeking abortions, and he doesn't "like the idea of arresting people for moving about the country."
As a senator, Vance has not proposed legislation that explicitly calls for travel bans to prevent abortions. However, he did cosponsor Senate Bill 822, the "Modification to Department of Defense Travel Authorities for Abortion-Related Expenses Act of 2023," a piece of legislation that aims to prohibit the department
Vance's opinion on abortion restrictions was a major talking point during the 2024 presidential election. For instance, during his
Also, during the debate, moderator Nora O'Donnell asked whether Vance would "create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency" as vice president, and he responded, "No, Norah, certainly we won't."
Weeks later, the issue of people traveling for abortions came up in a New York Times interview between Vance and journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro:
So you are OK with women traveling to another state to get an abortion? That is something that you would like to see preserved in this country? [Laughs.] OK. …
Yes or no? It's a pretty — Lulu, I'm saying I'm OK with the states making these decisions. Now, you talk about what I'm OK with. Do I think that the voters of California are going to enact a more liberal policy than I might like to see? Yes. In fact, I accept that as the reality of the state level, state-focused regime that President Trump and I are encouraging people to take. Am I OK with it? I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I'm OK with the states making these decisions, even if they make decisions that JD Vance or Donald Trump might not make.
In sum, it was erroneous to frame Vance's comments on the January 2022 podcast as him calling for a federal response to prevent people from traveling states for abortions, and, since then, he has said he does not support imposing restrictions on such travel.