The Texas woman who found herself in a legal challenge to Texas’ abortion law has accepted an invitation to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
There are two themes to Joe Biden’s re-election campaign – abortion and democracy. Biden has no successes to point to in order to justify a second term in the White House so this is what he has settled on. The abortion theme is front and center this week. Biden re-launched his re-election campaign in Virginia with an emphasis on abortion. Kamala participated in the event and her job was to gin up the crowd on the issue. The campaign hopes to win in November using the issue, as Democrats have done since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. The issue of abortion is now back in the hands of state legislatures.
Texas has a strict abortion law but abortion is allowed when the life of the mother is endangered. There is a ban on abortion after six weeks. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. It is one of the country’s strictest abortion laws.
Last month, 31-year-old Kate Cox, a mom of two children in the Dallas area, filed what was believed to be a first of its kind lawsuit in Texas. She sought an abortion at 20 weeks because her pregnancy was deemed nonviable and it was a risk to her health. The pregnancy could also put future fertility at risk. That was also an important consideration because Kate and her husband want to have more children.
Cox was denied an abortion. A Travis County District judge issued a temporary restraining order. The judge ruled that Cox could abort her baby. That move is believed to be the first time in 50 years that a judge has intervened to allow a pregnant adult woman to abort her baby. The abortion was sought because of the potential risk to the health of the mother, not because the baby was unwanted.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to stop Cox from getting an abortion. He sent a letter to three large Houston hospitals that he thought may be involved in performing the abortion. He told the hospitals that the temporary order would “not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.” He took the case to the Texas Supreme Court.
The Texas Supreme Court placed an administrative stay on the district court’s ruling. It did so ‘without regard to the merits’ of the case. Several days later, the Texas Supreme Court kicked the decision back to doctors. The Court said it would be an overreach to rule on one specific case. The ruling said that doctors must use their “reasonable medical judgment” in making a decision about abortion for their patients. And it called for more guidance to be issued by the state’s medical board.
Meanwhile, after the Texas Supreme Court placed a stay on the district court’s ruling, Cox decided to go out of state to get an abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights represents Cox. It is reported that she went to New Mexico for an abortion. As it turned out, she could have received an emergency abortion in Texas, with her doctor’s decision that it was a necessary action.
The case received lots of publicity and pro-abortion activists were all over it. Now Cox is invited to attend the State of the Union address. Her story will play into the narrative that women are being harmed because of red states like Texas passing strict laws on abortion. Texas is one of fourteen states that have signed strict abortion laws into effect.
The Bidens spoke with Kate on Sunday, and the White House press secretary said: ‘They thanked her for her courage in sharing her story and speaking out against the impact of the extreme abortion ban in Texas.’
Kate will sit with the first lady at the event on March 7.
Look for the media to do lots of stories about abortion law in America since the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs as Biden runs for re-election. On Wednesday a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association was published that found Texas with a high number of rape-related pregnancies since its abortion law went into effect.
Texas saw an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies during the 16 months after the state outlawed all abortions, with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
That’s the highest estimate among the 14 states with total abortion bans, with Texas having the largest population, according to the study. The figure helps put the magnitude of the state’s laws into perspective, especially for those who can’t access abortion pills or travel out of state to receive abortion care, said one of the authors, Dr. Kari White of the Texas-based Resound Research for Reproductive Health.
States like Texas that do not allow for the exceptions rape and incest come under fire for such a stringent stance. That is understandable because the majority of Americans think that abortion should be limited at the 15-16 week mark in a pregnancy and exceptions should be made for rape and incest. For many Americans, a six week ban on abortion is too short of a window, given that many women don’t realize they are pregnant by the six week point. Governor Abbott and Republican lawmakers in Texas point out that a rape victim, for example, has six weeks to take a pregnancy test and if necessary, seek an abortion in Texas.
Kamala Harris, the Biden administration’s abortion czar, has weighed in on the JAMA study. It is abortion week, after all, so this was to be expected. Not that I would ever suspect the media of coordinating with the administration or anything like that. Perish the thought. Are we to believe that Kamala reads the Houston Chronicle (or any newspaper)? Did the Chronicle seek a response from Kamala?
“Women across our nation should not be subject to extreme and oppressive laws that dictate what they can do with their bodies, including and especially after surviving a violent crime,” Harris said in a statement to the Chronicle. “As a lifelong fighter for the health and wellbeing of women and children, this is immoral. The women of Texas and women of America deserve the freedom to make these personal decisions without the government telling them what to do. I will continue to fight for the fundamental freedoms of everyone throughout the country.”
Another Democrat delivered a hot take.
“Outrageous for GOP leaders to feel entitled to make health decisions for survivors,” said U.S. Rep Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin. “Congress must restore abortion rights.”
That’s the goal. Biden wants Congress to codify Roe v Wade and Democrats are happy to accommodate him. Theirs is a culture of death, not life.
Joe Biden was against abortion before he was for it.
Joe Biden used to oppose taxpayer-funded abortion — and even called abortion "a tragedy."
Now, Biden supports taxpayer-funded abortion until the moment of birth. pic.twitter.com/2a5nLmPD9Y
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 22, 2024
Democrats and Team Biden are running on scaring voters to the polls. Despite what they claim, abortion is not illegal in the United States. Women are not being arrested for miscarriages. Abortion is not a constitutional right. It has been put back to the state level where it belongs. Different states have different laws. The people speak and lawmakers act. That is ‘democracy’ in our constitutional republic.
