O’Rourke, possible overturning of Roe draw thousands to rally
Thousands stampeded through sweltering heat in downtown Houston to protest the potential unraveling of Roe v. Wade at a rally Saturday headlined by gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke.
O’Rourke’s team said numbers swelled from 4,000 to nearly 5,000 people who gathered at Discovery Green Park, although Houston police did not have an official crowd estimate. Protesters expressed shock and anger at the draft Supreme Court opinion leaked last week, indicating the landmark court ruling could be overturned. A so-called “trigger law” in Texas would make abortions illegal within 30 days of the court tossing out Roe v. Wade.
Natasha Klimas, 33, said she has never been the type to attend protests but the shock of the news pushed her to come out.
“A lot of people around my age don’t know what it’s like without Roe v. Wade. It’s scary,” she said. She carried a poster with wire hanger taped onto it and the phrase: “This is the Republican health care plan.”
Klimas, a physician who lives near Rice University, said she’s worried about how overturning Roe v. Wade will impact women and trans-females’ access to reproductive health care.
Bella Thomas and Jaylen Gregory, both 18-year-old students at Clear Brook High School in Friendswood, held bright pink signs that read: “Against abortion? Get a Vasectomy!” and “Don’t Tread on Me” with a snake in the shape of a uterus. They said they both know girls who were too scared to tell their parents they were pregnant and instead tried to force a miscarriage by taking drugs or binge drinking.
Banning legal abortions “is not going to stop abortions. It’s going to stop safe abortions,” Gregory said.
Carol Lapin, 65, remembers the world before Roe v. Wade where people died due to unsafe abortions. The Spring Branch-area resident said she worries the brunt of unwanted pregnancies would fall on lowincome women who can’t afford to travel out of state to access an abortion.
“You want to force people to have babies, why don’t we force you to take care of them?” Lapin said.
Democrats are trying to channel that fury over into the polls in a year when gubernatorial candidate O’Rourke is
challenging incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, who last year signed into law one of the most restrictive anti-abortion measures in the country.
A broader attack
On Saturday, O’Rourke reassured supporters that not all hope is lost when ensuring access to abortion in Texas.
“Whatever we think the odds are against us, this is possible and in fact it has been done before up against much greater odds,” O’Rourke said. He referenced Jane Roe — (Norma McCorvey) the woman who was the plaintiff in the landmark case — who lived in Texas when she sought to challenge Texas’ abortion laws. “It was Texas women themselves who won the right for privacy and a legal, safe abortion in the state of Texas.”
O’Rourke’s speech touched on everything from guns control to transgender rights — framing the abortion debate as part of a broader attack on Texans’ health and safety.
“If this guy (Abbott) really cared about the heartbeats of Texas kids, an 11-year-old in Conroe, Texas, would not have died (in the Texas freeze) ... because this guy could not keep the lights on and the heat running in the energy capital of the world,” O’Rourke said.
He pointed out that Texas has a relatively high maternal mortality rate, noting the rate is worse among Black women. “This guy doesn’t care about life,” he said.
The part protest, part campaign rally drew many of the biggest local Democratic names — including Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Mayor Sylvester Turner — who implored protesters to turn out at the polls.
Rep. Ann Johnson encouraged people to reach out to Republican women.
“There is one man on the ballot” who would force your granddaughter, daughter or niece to raise a child conceived through rape,” Johnson said, of Gov. Greg Abbott. “And there is one man on the ballot who can
save us, and that is Beto O’Rourke!”
(Abbott previously said he would work to “eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.” At the same time, though, he signed a state law last year banning all abortions after six weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest.)
Rep. Sylvia Garcia said the draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court would erase more than 50 years of progress.
“We would turn back the clock to days of hangers and milk maids,” she said, imploring people to vote and leading the crowd in a chant, “Abbott must go!”
The crowd fell quiet when U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee held up a wire coat hanger on the stage.
“I’m holding the tool that women were forced in America in some back alley, in some back alley — my sister, your sister, a grandmother, a cousin — (were)
forced to take this as her tool to her body to try and save her life. Many of you may have heard the story that some did not make it. … Are we going back?” Jackson Lee asked the crowd, who responded with a resounding “No!”
While the draft Supreme Court ruling outraged many Houstonians, others who are
opposed to abortion were cautiously optimistic this week. The protest came the day after Houston Coalition for Life held its own fundraiser that was expected to draw more than 550 attendees. Christine Melchor, executive director of the coalition, said she knows her nonprofit that provides resources, counseling, diapers to mothers will
have to ramp up services.
“Crisis pregnancies aren’t going to end just because abortion may be illegal for Texans. We’re still going to be available and help the many women that need it,” Melchor said.
Texans split
Polling suggests Texans are roughly equally split on the issue and voters overwhelmingly believe that abortion should be legal in at least some cases, such as if the mother’s life is at risk or if the pregnancy results from rape or incest.
On Friday, Abbott tweeted the results of a CNN poll suggesting that impact of overturning Roe v. Wade would have only “muted” impact on the midterm elections.
“In Texas it will be like 2014 all over again: not close,” Abbott wrote. However, the CNN poll itself suggested about 30 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of independents and 81 percent of Democrats do not support an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade.