Tuesday afternoon, signing an executive order banning masks mandates in any part of the Lone Star State, Governor Greg Abbott declared, “Texans, not government, should decide their best health practices.”
Wednesday morning, the Texas Republican didn’t even try to restrain his glee as he signed an abortion ban bill into law, surrounded by about 50 men and only eight women (almost if not all appeared to be white.)
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life,” said Abbott, who has a law degree from Vanderbilt University, “and yet, millions of children lose their right to life every year, because of abortion.”
That’s false.
Nationwide, abortion rates have plummeted. A 2019 study, USAToday reported, found abortion rates to be the lowest since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared women have a right to choose an abortion. The reason is not laws like the one Abbott is signing, but because of fewer pregnancies, likely due to greater availability of contraception and comprehensive (not abstinence-only) sex education.
Abbott is lying that there are “millions” of abortions every year. USA Today reports there were 862,000 abortions in 2017. The last year one million abortions were recorded was 2011. The highest was in 1990, with 1.6 million.
Abbott signed the anti-abortion bill into law. It bans abortion at six weeks, which is unconstitutional. It also offers no exception for rape or incest.
“Before the pandemic,” NPR reported last July, “Texas already had the highest rate and largest number of people without health insurance in the country. And 20 percent of all uninsured children in the U.S. live in Texas.”
“This year the coverage gap in Texas has only gotten worse: 29 percent of Texas adults under 65 don’t currently have health insurance.”
Abbott was quickly mocked, but the expansion of far right religious extremism overtaking the country is no laughing matter.