Texas GOP Official Begs Party to Stop Focusing on Abortion
“What are we going to do, stone women next?”
newrepublic.com
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling/
May 24, 2024/1:18 p.m. ET
Texas GOP Official Begs Party to Stop Focusing on Abortion
“What are we going to do, stone women next?”
SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Anti–abortion protesters at a “Rally for Life” march and celebration outside the Texas State Capitol on January 27, in Austin, Texas.
A precinct chair in the Houston GOP is calling on her party to drop its anti-abortion platforms, warning that the state’s draconian restrictions to the medical procedure are alienating its base.
Speaking at the Texas Republican convention, Harris County Precinct 178 chair Gilda Bayegan claimed that she was “shocked” to learn how many of her constituents were no longer Republicans.
“I asked them, ‘What matters to you?’ It’s the things that all these people have been telling you to focus on,” Bayegan said, motioning to the people around the room while rolling through a list of issues, ranging from judicial accountability to border security. “Nobody told me that they wanted stricter abortion laws.”
“Every time we talk about abortion we are putting gas in the tank of the Democrats,” Bayegan continued. “I’m up here begging you not to make it one of our priorities.”
Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, banning all use of the medical procedure except in the event of a severe medical emergency—though even that exception isn’t a given. Last year, Dallas mother Kate Cox became the first woman to challenge the state’s post-Roe emergency clause after learning that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition that would have jeopardized Cox’s health and future fertility if carried to term. But although Cox qualified for the procedure under Texas law, a district judge’s ruling allowing her to receive an abortion was effectively overridden by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who not only called for the Supreme Court to intervene in the case but also promised to convict abortion providers with felony charges, even if the procedure was court-ordered.
Still, Republican officials are continuing to milk the issue, proposing increasingly cruel ways to punish medical providers and women for giving or receiving reproductive care. Last month, leaked video footage captured Hood County GOP officials at a meeting supporting the death penalty for women and minors who seek abortion or even in vitro fertilization treatments.
It’s those kinds of initiatives, according to Bayegan, that serve as the metaphorical end of the road for voters. “One of my colleagues was in the health … committee. There was a guy in there saying ‘Make morning-after pills illegal, and prosecute anybody who uses them for murder.’ Murder?” mocked Bayegan. “What are we going to do, stone women next?”
But Republican attendees at the conference wouldn’t hear it. Instead, one man asked if she believed a “child in the womb was a human being,” while another man pressed Bayegan on her religious beliefs, asking if it mattered “what God believes in us” or if it only matters to win elections.
“If we lose this election, I want you all to think about the reality of what this country will become,” Bayegan replied.
