Melania Trump revealed her support for abortion rights Thursday ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, exposing a stark contrast with her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on the crucial election issue.

In a video posted to her X account Thursday morning, the former first lady defended women’s “individual freedoms” to do what they want with their bodies — a position at odds with much of the Republican Party and her own husband, who has struggled to find a consistent message on abortion while wedged between anti-abortion supporters in his base and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.

Her comments

“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” Melania Trump said in the video. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?”

The video appears to confirm excerpts of her self-titled memoir reported by The Guardian on Wednesday.

Melania Trump has rarely publicly expressed her personal political views and has been largely absent from the campaign trail. But in her memoir, set to be released publicly next Tuesday, she argues that the decision to end a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her doctor, “free from any intervention of pressure from the government,” according to the published excerpts.

“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she wrote, according to The Guardian. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”

Melania Trump writes that she has “carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

These views contrast sharply with the GOP’s anti-abortion platform and with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion access nationwide, and boasted about returning the abortion question to the states. Democrats have blamed the former president for the severe deterioration of reproductive rights as abortion bans were implemented in large swaths of the country following the overturning of the landmark case, which had granted a constitutional right to abortion.

Trump reaction

Donald Trump said Thursday that he had talked to his wife about the book and told her to “go with your heart.”

“We spoke about it. And I said, you have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe,” he told Fox News, adding, “There are some people that are very, very far right on the issue, meaning without exceptions, and then there are other people that view it a little bit differently than that.”

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign noted Trump’s role in ending Roe v. Wade in a statement reacting to Melania Trump’s defense of abortion rights.

“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he has explicitly said so after previously refusing to answer questions on the subject. Abortion rights advocates are skeptical, however.