Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “some form of punishment” should be meted out to women seeking abortions if the procedure is banned in the United States. However, the real estate magnate retracted his statement after facing backlash for his controversial comment, The New York Times reported.

Trump made the statement at a forum of TV network MSNBC with host Chris Matthews, who pressed Trump, a former supporter of abortion rights, for answers on his calls to ban the procedure. After sidetracking the questions initially, Trump said, “You go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places...But you have to ban it.” He later added, “There has to be some form of punishment.”

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Hours later, Trump withdrew his remarks in their entirety – a first for the candidate who said he refuses to succumb to “political correctness” – and said in a statement that if abortion was disallowed, “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman”.

Republican rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz jumped on the bandwagon immediately to criticise Trump's statement. “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. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, too, condemned his comments, calling them “horrific and telling”.