Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has defended his abortion ban, including the fact that it provides no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.
The crushingly restrictive law outlawed abortion as we know it, in what experts have called a blatant attack against Roe v. Wade. The law bans abortions at six weeks, and targets anyone who “aids or abets” someone’s abortion. It makes anyone who helps a woman get an abortion a legal target, including even her driver or doctor, with any citizen able to collect an actual bounty on abortion providers.
When asked to defend the new state law banning most abortions, Abbott said the law does not force victims to give birth — even though it prohibits abortions before the majority of women know they’re pregnant. Amy Hagstrom Miller, head of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider with four clinics in Texas, said about 90 percent of women who have come into their clinics are more than six weeks into their pregnancy. Abbott decidedly ignored these statistics and facts while claiming his law does not force birth.
Abbott’s law provides zero exception for rape and incest, to which he responded: “Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them.”
Activists and experts fighting against violence against women have said that Abbott’s law effectively will mean rape victims will be forced to carry their rapists’ baby to term.
Experts in violence against women, including rape, have said Abbott’s remarks show he does not understand the realities of rape.
“If it were that easy, rape would no longer exist,” said Amy Jones, chief executive officer of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center.
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