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Donald Trump said Wednesday he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected to the White House again, reversing a promise the former president made as a candidate in 2016 and stood by during his first term in office. Trump’s latest shift on abortion is a remarkable position for a Republican presidential nominee and it is illustrative of Trump’s desire to make one of his greatest political liabilities disappear. It follows a lengthy statement released Monday in which Trump said that states and voters should decide how and when to restrict abortion but left unclear how far he would take that approach. (Contorno and Sullivan, 4/10)

Two days after he said states should make their own decisions about regulating abortion, former president Donald Trump criticized Arizona for reinstating an abortion law he said goes too far. “That will be straightened out,” Trump said when asked by a reporter Wednesday about the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a near-total ban on abortion in the state. (LeVine and Vazquez, 4/10)

The former president on Wednesday responded to the Arizona Supreme Court’s reviving a harsh 1864 abortion ban — which indeed threatens abortion providers with two to five years in prison — by punting on this basic issue. Asked whether doctors who provide abortions should be punished, Trump allowed that certain states could do that. “I’d let that be to the states,” Trump said. “You know, everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights. And what we wanted to do is get it back to the states, because for 53 years it’s been a fight. And now the states are handling it. And some have handled it very well, and the others will end up handling it very well." (Blake, 4/10)

The problem for Republicans doesn’t stop at abortion, but extends to the possible curtailment of IVF. A constellation of right-leaning groups, from former Vice President Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom to the Heritage Foundation, have mounted efforts to restrict the widely popular procedure. “Republicans,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, “are going to have to not be on the other side of IVF — I mean, we’re looking at an issue that is 90 percent supported by Americans.” (Wren, Leonard and Fernandez, 4/10)

POLITICO spoke to Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood California, on the lessons learned from that fight and what this busy week of abortion news — former President Donald Trump appearing to side against a national ban and the Arizona Supreme Court upholding a 1864 state law imposing a near total ban — means for the abortion rights movement. (Mason, 4/10)