Pricey Gov. Greg Abbott,
Was it already a 12 months in the past that you just declared Texas’ “Aim Quantity One” was to “eradicate rape,” after a reporter requested how you would justify signing a 6-week abortion ban with out rape exceptions? How’s that going for you?
Or, extra particularly, how’s it going for the Texans who report an estimated 13,500 rapes to their native authorities yearly, based on the FBI’s most up-to-date crime stats? Do you know that’s an enormous undercount, since 90 p.c of Texas survivors by no means report back to legislation enforcement, a lot much less establish their experiences as sexual assault, given the social stigma and victim-blaming round it?
Did you might have these numbers in thoughts this week, while you mentioned throughout a taping of Lone Star Politics that your state’s abortion legal guidelines didn’t want a rape exception, as a result of survivors “can get the plan B capsule that may forestall being pregnant from occurring within the first place”? Have you learnt how a lot you sound like Todd Akin? Do you notice that emergency contraception have to be taken inside 5 days, prices as much as $50, and is believed to work much less successfully for these with the next physique mass index?
Whereas we’re on that matter, how do you are feeling about the best to contraception, which 195 of your Republican colleagues in Congress voted in opposition to codifying on July 21? Do you know that the anti-abortion motion is explicitly concentrating on contraception subsequent, by increasing the definition of abortion to incorporate contraception? Is that the place you propose to attract the road, after years of serving to anti-abortion activists push by way of their agenda in Texas?
How are you going to say so confidently that victims don’t want abortions, as a result of they’ll “entry well being care instantly, in addition to…report it”? What concerning the survivors within the 80 p.c of Texas counties the place no hospitals employed a sexual assault nurse examiner as of 2020? Or the survivors in your capitol metropolis, Austin, which paid out $825,000 earlier this 12 months after the police division and district legal professional’s workplace mishandled the rape instances of 15 ladies?
And what concerning the survivors who by no means make a report as a result of they concern police bias or retaliation from their attacker? Do you know that in some locations, sexual assault victims have been sued or prosecuted for reporting?
Let’s actually get all the way down to it: While you speak about rapists, are you solely fascinated about strangers in darkish alleys? What did you imply final 12 months, while you mentioned you’d “eradicate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets”? Do the 80 p.c of survivors who’ve a relationship with their assailant rely, in your thoughts, as individuals worthy of safety?
Extra merely, do ladies rely as individuals to you? Actually? So why are you suing the federal authorities for ensuring pregnant individuals in emergency rooms get the lifesaving therapy they want, even when it means ending their being pregnant?
Sincerely,
Madison Pauly