I’m absolutely thrilled to have gotten an ‘F’ on my report card. (I’ll remind my kids that this is an exceptional case.)
Why? Because it’s the Texas Right to Life report card!
I’ve always been pro-choice, so I expected to get a failing grade from the anti-abortion lobby. But it gets so much better. I got like an ‘F-’ or something: they called me an “adversary” of those trying to limit women’s healthcare rights and went to the trouble to list all the good pro-choice bills I filed. Thanks TRL!
These sorts of report cards are usually designed to raise money for the backwards organizations that create them. Let’s turn that approach on its head:
What did I do to earn that ‘F-’? Here’s what Texas Right to Life had to say:
“Senator Johnson authored several pieces of [pro-choice] legislation, including: Senate Bill 78, to legalize abortion pills and expand their use up to 10 weeks; Senate Bill 79, to repeal Texas’ pre-Roe [anti-choice] laws; Senate Bill 291, to decriminalize direct and indirect assistance for out-of-state abortions; and, Senate Bill 1280, to permit direct and indirect assistance for out-of-state abortions.”
Damn right I did.
Now let me tell you about these four bills and why I authored them — along with many others designed to protect women’s right to choose.
I wrote Senate Bill 78 to cut back on Texas’s draconian abortion ban by allowing physicians to prescribe abortion-inducing drugs. The decision whether to have an abortion should be made between a woman and her doctor, and her doctor needs the ability to effectuate whatever decision they make.
I wrote Senate Bill 79 to repeal Texas’s abortion ban altogether. The abortion ban was wrong in 2021 when Texas Republicans enacted it; it was wrong in 2022 when it became effective after Roe v. Wade was overruled; it was wrong in 2023 when I introduced Senate Bill 79; and it’s still wrong now in 2024.
I introduced Senate Bills 291 and 1280 to provide that Texas law doesn’t prohibit anyone — family members, volunteers, medical professionals, or otherwise — from helping a woman travel outside of Texas to obtain an abortion. Texas might have banned abortions, but other states still protect women’s rights — and women should be able to travel to those states to obtain medical care they can’t get here.