Instead of celebrating today’s 51st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are staring into the reality of a post-Roe world. The stories of Kate Cox, Dr. Austin Dennard, and thousands of other Texas women and their families are no longer hypothetical, they are real. The anti-woman agenda in Texas is cruel and frightening, causing women to leave our state or to simply not come here.
Having enacted a virtually total ban on abortion, what more damage could they do? Now various cities and counties are joining the Big Orwellian Government movement, deputizing citizens to persecute fellow citizens for helping women leave Texas to receive abortion care.
None of this is acceptable. I filed bills last year to block the abortion travel bans and to protect people who assist women in leaving the state for care. Meanwhile I support Congressional action to codify reproductive rights. The paradigm in Roe, as shaped by a half century of common law and cultural development, provides the most logical point of reference.
Despite all, today we should celebrate the compassion, scientific rigor, cultural respect, and political humility of Roe, as we reaffirm our commitment to protecting women’s autonomy and to keeping government out of matters of personal faith, conscience and philosophy.