Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump walked back his statement that there would “have to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions if the procedure were outlawed in the U.S. 
 
 The comment, which immediately riled abortion-rights supporters, came during a week where Trump is fighting to defend himself on women’s issues on multiple fronts ahead of a key primary in Wisconsin, and led him to issue two clarifications on Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 “This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination,” Trump said in the first statement. “Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions, which I have outlined numerous times.” 
 
 As his initial remarks continued to draw scrutiny, Trump issued a second statement saying: “If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed—like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.” 
 
 Trump made the original “punishment” comments at a taping of an MSNBC town hall to be aired Wednesday evening. Host Chris Matthews pressed Trump on his anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him whether abortion should be punished if it is outlawed. “This is not something you can dodge,” Matthews said. 
 
 “Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answered. 
 
 “How about you?” Matthews asked. 
 
 “I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump said. 
 
 “I’m asking you,” Matthews said. 
 
 “I am pro-life,” Trump said. Asked how a ban would actually work, Trump said, “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump said. 
 
 Matthews then pressed Trump on whether he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal. 
 
 “There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said. “For the woman?” Matthews asked. “Yeah,” Trump said, nodding. 
 
 Trump said the punishment would “have to be determined.” 
 
 Trump said the stakes of the general election are high because of the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. President Barack Obama has nominated a replacement whom Senate Republicans say they won’t consider because of the impending national vote. 
 
 “They’ve set the law and frankly the judges, you’re going to have a very big election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it’s a real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important,” Trump said. 
 
 “When you say what’s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected,” Trump said. 
 
 Fight vs. Cruz 
 
 Texas Senator Ted Cruz blasted Trump’s remarks. 
 
 “Once again Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention,” Cruz said in a statement. “On the important issue of the sanctity of life, what’s far too often neglected is that being pro-life is not simply about the unborn child; it’s also about the mother—and creating a culture that respects her and embraces life. Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.” 
 
 Cruz has repeatedly attacked the billionaire over his “evolution” on the abortion issue. In an October 1999 interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump said he was “very pro-choice.” 
 
 “I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it, I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I hear people debating the subject,” Trump said in 1999. “But you still—I just believe in choice. And again, it may be a little bit of a New York background, because there is some different attitude in different parts of the country, and I was raised in New York, grew up and worked and everything else in New York City. But I am strongly for choice, and yet I hate the concept of abortion.” 
 
 After joining the race for president, Trump said he had “evolved” on the issue. At the first Republican presidential debate in August, Trump sought to clarify his 1999 remarks to Russert. 
 
 “If you look at the question, I was in business. They asked me a question as to pro-life or choice,” Trump said. “And then since then, I've very much evolved. And what happened is friends of mine years ago were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted. And it wasn't aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that. And I saw other instances. And I am very, very proud to say that I am pro-life.” 
 
 One of his earliest such public declarations was in 2011, during a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I am pro-life,” he said. 
 
 On the campaign trail, Cruz has also attacked Trump for having “New York values” and for supporting federal funding for Planned Parenthood for women's health services other than abortions. 
 
 In recent days, Cruz and Trump have fought an escalating battle over their wives, with Trump accusing his competitor of having ties to a group that ran an ad with a provocative photo of Trump’s wife, Melania. Cruz denied involvement. After Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s own wife, Heidi, Cruz began to back away from his pledge last year to support whoever becomes the Republican nominee. On Tuesday, Cruz said he’s “not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and my family.” 
 
 Further igniting the race, Trump’s campaign manager was charged on Tuesday with misdemeanor battery for grabbing a female reporter’s arm at a news conference earlier this month. The campaign says the aide, Corey Lewandowski, is innocent, and Trump has sought to cast doubt on the reporter’s account of the incident, arguing that she was interfering with Secret Service. 
 
 Cruz leads Trump 40 percent to 30 percent among likely Republican primary voters in Wisconsin, according to a Marquette Law School poll released Wednesday. The vote is April 5. Trump leads the delegate count and is seeking to win a majority of delegates ahead of the party’s national gathering in July in order to avoid a contested convention. 
 
 Voter Skepticism 
 
 Trump’s comments drew a swift rebuke from Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. “Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. Horrific and telling,” she said on Twitter, signing the message with an “H” to signify the message was from the candidate personally. 
 
 Helen Patenaude, a retiree from Oconto who attended the taping on Wednesday, said she is supporting Trump because “he tells it like it is.” “He's not a politician,” she said. But she said she was “confused” and “didn't really understand” what Trump meant during his exchange with Matthews on abortion. 
 
 Keep up with the best of Bloomberg Politics. Get our newsletter daily. Business Your guide to the most important business stories of the day, every day. You will now receive the Business newsletter Markets The most important market news of the day. So you can sleep an extra five minutes. You will now receive the Markets newsletter Technology Insights into what you'll be paying for, downloading and plugging in tomorrow and 10 years from now. You will now receive the Technology newsletter Pursuits What to eat, drink, wear and drive – in real life and your dreams. You will now receive the Pursuits newsletter Game Plan The school, work and life hacks you need to get ahead. You will now receive the Game Plan newsletter Several anti-abortion groups criticized Trump’s comments. “No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion,” said a statement from Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, which organizes the largest annual anti-abortion march annually in Washington. “This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths of healing, not punishment.” 
 
 Town hall attendee Lidia Nonn of Green Bay, who said she is pro-life but thinks abortion should be legal, said Trump “should've thought the answer out more carefully.” 
 
 “If a woman decides she has to have an abortion, he should've realized that her anguish spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically is punishment enough,” said Nonn. “It's her right.” ||||| APPLETON, Wis. -- Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday that there "has to be some form of punishment" for abortion if it were banned in the U.S. -- as he says it should be -- and that punishment should fall on the woman. 
 
 Trump, who is currently struggling with women voters, was pressed on the issue of abortion during an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, set to air Wednesday evening. 
 
 Matthews asked whether abortion should be punished, and Trump initially skated around the issue. He said some Republicans would say it should be, and that he "would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on." 
 
 He then asked Matthews -- but didn't answer himself -- "Are you going to, say, put them to jail?" and added he was anti-abortion and that "you have to ban" abortion. 
 
 "There has to be some form of punishment," Trump said, adding "Yeah" when Matthews asked if he meant for the woman. The host asked if that punishment would be closer to 10 days or 10 years, and Trump said he didn't know. 
 
 Trump indicated he would be far more lenient on the man who impregnated a woman who had an abortion -- he said he did not think they would bear the same level of responsibility. 
 
 The Trump campaign quickly tried to walk back his comments afterward, saying the matter should be decided by the states. Later, Trump put out a statement that said his position was unchanged, but contradicted his past statements entirely: 
 
 If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed -- like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions. 
 
 Most women who spoke with The Huffington Post at Trump's town hall in Appleton, Wisconsin, on Wednesday said they did not agree that women should be held criminally liable if they had an abortion. But Trump's initial position did not seem to weigh heavily on their support of the real estate mogul, whom they unanimously described in positive terms as a good family man who would be good for women if elected president. 
 
 "No," said Appleton resident Sarah Schnell, when asked if she agreed with Trump on the matter. "And I'm pro-life. But I think that that's something that's going to have to be decided between a woman and God. I don't think that's right, I'm against it, but I don't go as far as saying the government should get involved in it." 
 
 Cathy Smith, a caretaker of people with disabilities in nearby Freemont, said "a woman should be able to do whatever she wants." 
 
 Lucy Deboard, a sanitarian who recently moved to Wisconsin from New Jersey, said she didn't agree with Trump. But, she added, the issue of abortion was far down on the totem pole when compared to national security. 
 
 "I don't vote based on abortions. I think there's more important things," said Deboard, who described herself as pro-choice. "Look, if ISIS comes over and kills us, I'm not real concerned with abortions. There's more important things to deal with here. We're way beyond abortions here. If you want abortion, you can go get one. I guess I'm pro-choice, but I'm not strong. Like I said, I have more important issues I'm concerned about." 
 
 Lynn Paulus, an Oshkosh resident who described herself as pro-life "to a point," also sounded her disagreement with Trump. 
 
 "If there is a woman that has been raped, I believe in exceptions. No, I don't believe in holding them criminally liable," Paulus added. 
 
 Debra Lynn, an esthetician from Green Bay, put her objection in Biblical terms. 
 
 "If they're not punished on Earth, they'll be punished in the long run," she said. 
 
 Abortion bans supported by Republicans usually make it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure, rather than for patients to obtain it. 
 
 Trump has been slippery on his stances on abortion, as with many other issues. He previously said he was in favor of abortion rights and “very pro-choice,” before changing his stance. He said he would defund Planned Parenthood, and yet offered a defense of its other services. 
 
 Republicans opposed to abortion rights already punish patients who seek the procedure, so Trump was just making their philosophy more explicit. A record number of restrictions on abortion have been passed since Republicans swept control in a slew of state legislatures in 2010; many of these provisions are meant to dissuade patients from seeking abortions and punish them if they do. 
 
 Requiring a patient undergo a waiting period of 24, 48 or 72 hours before having an abortion is a form of punishment. Banning telemedicine for medication abortion punishes patients in rural areas. Requiring an ultrasound in which the provider describes the details of the fetus to the patient is a form of punishment. Mandating biased counseling, in which doctors are required to tell patients that abortion causes breast cancer or depression, is a form of punishment. 
 
 Forcing providers to use an outdated regimen for administering medication abortions, which carries a higher risk of side-effects, is a form of punishment. Laws preventing providers from using the method used in the vast majority of second-trimester abortions, because it is the safest, punish patients. And requiring adolescents to get permission from both of their parents to have the procedure, while mandating abstinence-based sex education at the same time, punishes teens for getting pregnant. 
 
 Lastly, the Hyde Amendment, which is routinely inserted into appropriations bills, punishes low-income patients by preventing Medicaid from covering the procedure. 
 
 "I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill,” said former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) during debate over Medicaid funding for abortion in 1977. 
 
 Trump has a long history of anti-woman comments, and this month has come under fire for his treatment of opponent Sen. Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi, and for sticking by his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he was charged with battery against a female reporter. 
 
 Reuters found earlier this month that half of all women have a “very unfavorable” view of the GOP front-runner. 
 
 Just 19 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal under all circumstances, according to Gallup, so Democrats and reproductive rights groups are guaranteed to seize upon Trump’s comments to argue that the Republican Party is out of step with public opinion on the issue. 
 
 Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quickly responded on Twitter. 
 
 Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. Horrific and telling. -H https://t.co/Qi8TutsOw9 — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 30, 2016 
 
 Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful. https://t.co/y49Z8YfRgV — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 30, 2016 
 
 Republican candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich told NBC's Chuck Todd that there should "absolutely not" be punishments for a woman if abortion was outlawed. He also said he would support outlawing the procedure, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, or women whose lives were in danger. 
 
 "Of course, women shouldn't be punished," he said. "Probably Donald Trump will figure out a way to say that he didn't say it or it was misquoted or whatever, but I don't think so. I don't think that's an appropriate response." 
 
 "And it's a difficult enough situation, and to try to punish somebody," he added, trailing off. 
 
 Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, released a statement saying Donald Trump obviously "wants to ban abortion, criminalize doctors, and is threatening women." 
 
 “But let’s be clear: Donald Trump has said it, Ted Cruz has voted for it, and John Kasich has enacted it. The Republican Party’s leadership has been waging a full-out assault on access to reproductive health care," she said, adding, "The more these Republican candidates show their true beliefs, the more voters they alienate.” 
 
 Trump's words didn't go over well with the head of one of the largest anti-abortion groups, either. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, issued a statement calling the comment "completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion." 
 
 "Being pro-life means wanting what is best for the mother and the baby," she said. "Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment." 
 
 This story has been updated to include Trump's later statement, comments from his supporters at a town hall, and comments from Laguens. 
 
 Samantha Lachman and Elise Foley reported from Washington, D.C. Igor Bobic reported from Appleton, Wisconsin. ||||| “The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb,” he continued. 
 
 Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals moved quickly to distance themselves from his initial comments as well. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said, “Of course women shouldn’t be punished.” 
 
 “I don’t think that’s an appropriate response,” he told MSNBC. “It’s a difficult enough situation.” 
 
 The campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said attention should be focused on providers of abortion, not the women who receive them. 
 
 “Once again, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention,” Mr. Cruz said in a statement, adding, “Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.” 
 
 For Republicans, the chaos felt something like a recurring nightmare. After the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012, party leaders had hoped to move beyond a reputation for offensive comments on women’s issues, emblematized by Todd Akin, a Senate candidate in Missouri who posited that victims of “legitimate rape” were somehow able to prevent pregnancy. 
 
 Mr. Trump’s comments came as many Republicans are confronting, with escalating despair, the specter of a Trump nomination — and the electoral difficulties he would face. 
 
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 Last week, Mr. Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Mr. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and posted an unflattering image of her on Twitter. On Tuesday, he forcefully defended his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery over allegations that he grabbed a female reporter who had tried to question Mr. Trump earlier this month. 
 
 A New York Times/CBS News poll this month had already demonstrated Mr. Trump’s weakness with female voters, who favored the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, 55 percent to 35 percent. 
 
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 On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump’s comments “horrific and telling.” 
 
 Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, sought to tie Mr. Trump to the rest of his party, noting that Mr. Cruz opposed exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest. Mr. Kasich, she added, has moved to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio. 
 
 “All three Republicans would drag the country back to the days when women were forced to seek illegal procedures from unlicensed providers out of sheer desperation,” she said. 
 
 Yet with his statement on Wednesday, and the scramble to clarify it, Mr. Trump also exacerbated concerns among Republicans who have questioned the authenticity of his late-in-life conversions to conservative social positions. 
 
 Mr. Trump is already facing a difficult test in Wisconsin, where the Republican primary will take place Tuesday, and where those looking to stop his march to the nomination see a critical opportunity. A Marquette University Law School poll released just before the MSNBC interview showed Mr. Cruz in first place in the state, leading Mr. Trump by 10 points. 
 
 Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, who is deeply popular with Republicans, has taken a hard line against abortions. Last year, he signed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, just as he was gearing up to run for president. He bowed out of the race last September after failing to gain traction, and this week endorsed Mr. Cruz. 
 
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 Mr. Cruz has long attacked Mr. Trump for supporting abortion rights in the past, highlighting clips from a 1999 interview in which Mr. Trump called himself “very pro-choice” and condemning his positive comments about Planned Parenthood at a debate last month. 
 
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 Mr. Trump said the group did “wonderful things” for women’s health, even as he criticized its abortion services. 
 
 There does not appear to be any record of Mr. Trump’s shift on abortion rights before February 2011, the month he spoke at a conservative conclave and made clear he was considering running for president the next year. 
 
 Bruce Haynes, a Republican strategist, said he could not recall “any credible corner of the movement” calling for criminal sanctions against women who sought abortions. 
 
 Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said efforts to punish individual women were “completely out of touch with the pro-life movement.” 
 
 “No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion,” she said. “We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.” 
 
 Others worried that Mr. Trump had helped fulfill a stereotype of the anti-abortion movement. 
 
 “He doesn’t understand pro-life people or the life issue,” said Penny Nance, the head of the conservative group Concerned Women for America and a supporter of Mr. Cruz. “He instead became the caricature that the left tries to paint us to be.” 
 
 In Mr. Trump’s struggles, his Republican opponents seem to have sensed an opportunity. Even before the latest controversy, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich had invoked their daughters while discussing Mr. Trump’s treatment of women. 
 
 Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Cruz appeared in Madison, Wis., to introduce a “Women for Cruz” coalition. He was joined by his wife, Heidi; his mother, Eleanor Darragh, who is seldom seen on the campaign trail; and Carly Fiorina, a high-profile supporter. 
 
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 For much of the event, Mr. Cruz sat quietly behind a modest floral arrangement, allowing the women to speak on his behalf during a forum that seemed aimed at a rival whose name was scarcely mentioned. 
 
 “I just wanted to say one thing about Ted,” Heidi Cruz said near the end. “I want all of the women here in Wisconsin and across this country to know how supportive Ted has always been of all the women in his life.”
– Donald Trump entered the national abortion debate on Wednesday as smoothly as a burning oil tanker slamming into a fireworks warehouse. After causing an outcry by saying that if abortions are banned, women who have them should be punished, he went on to claim the issue was "unclear" before issuing a statement saying that doctors, not women who have abortions, would be the ones to be punished if abortion was outlawed. "My position has not changed—like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions," he insisted. A roundup of reactions: The statements came amid what Politico calls "24 hours of mayhem" for Trump that also included scrapping his GOP loyalty pledge, a fresh line of attack in the Corey Lewandowski case, and complaining about the Geneva Conventions. Politico predicts that with the party now hopelessly divided, a contested GOP convention is almost inevitable. Ben Carson offered a very Carsonesque defense of Trump in a CNN interview. "I don't think he really had a chance to really think about it," Carson said, adding that Trump was able to "come up with a more rational and informed type of answer" after talking to advisers. Carson said he agreed with Trump's latter position that abortion providers, not women, should be the ones to be punished if the US ever bans abortion. Ted Cruz didn't pass up the opportunity to slam Trump, the Hill reports. Trump "has demonstrated that he hasn't seriously thought through the issues, and he'll say anything just to get attention," Cruz said in a statement. "We shouldn't be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world," added Cruz, who, unlike Trump, does not support exceptions for rape and incest under an abortion ban, according to the Washington Post. Some anti-abortion activists are just as outraged as pro-choice groups by Trump's earlier comments, the New York Times reports. They say the call to punish women shows that Trump's shift toward being anti-abortion is very recent—and insincere. "No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion," says the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. "We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment." The Washington Post fact-checks Trump's claim that his change of position mirrors Reagan's, finding that this time, Trump is not "glaringly incorrect," although the comparison is a "gratuitous one that lacks historical context, and not analogous to his own evolution." The Post gives him two Pinocchios on a scale that goes to four.