Years before emerging as the likely Democratic nominee in Maine’s pivotal US Senate race, Troy Jackson answered on a candidate questionnaire that, “Abortion should never be legal,” and that women seeking an abortion should first be required to view an ultrasound of their pregnancy.
That response in 2010 was one of several sweeping anti-abortion positions Jackson, then running for reelection in the Maine state Senate, staked out in candidate surveys published in a local anti-abortion group’s 2004 and 2010 voter guides, which were reviewed by CNN.
Jackson’s views have since changed dramatically. He now supports establishing a federal right to abortion and, in 2023, co-sponsored a Maine law expanding access to abortion after fetal viability.
While Jackson’s earlier opposition to abortion has been reported before, including his high rating from anti-abortion groups, his detailed responses in surveys sent by Maine Right to Life have, until now, received less public scrutiny.
Jackson shifted his anti-abortion views close to a decade ago, when he served as the minority leader and then as president of the Maine state Senate. In 2022, he called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Constitutional right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade “devastating” and later voted against abortion restrictions.
