At rally, Abbott eyes work to be done
Thousands celebrated last year’s demise of Roe v. Wade — and with it, the banning of abortion in Texas — in a rally on the south steps of the Texas Capitol on Saturday afternoon.
But given last summer’s court decision, with abortions down 99 percent in the state, the question becomes: What happens now for Texas’ “pro-life” movement?
Democrats and even some Republicans have called for a new bill amending the abortion ban passed in 2021 to add exceptions for rape or incest, although the way forward for such a bill is murky. Meanwhile, there’s a bill to force sometimes unwilling local prosecutors to enforce the abortion ban, as well as other statues. Other states are making it harder to travel to seek an abortion in a state where the procedure is still legal.
“We believe being pro-life, and our work as people who support life, is not even close to being done,” Gov. Greg Abbott said Saturday at the rally. “We must now live up to the fullness of being pro-life. We must protect babies after they are born. We must protect the lives of the mothers who give birth to those babies.”
He called for increased funding for the state’s “alternatives to abortion” program, as well as for “the needs of women before birth and for up to three years after birth.”
The “Texas Rally for Life 2023” was organized by dozens of political, religious and civic organizations, and 23 buses shuttled people from around the state to Austin.
Danielle Raab, an accountant in her mid-30s who lives north of Austin, said she went to the rally not to advocate for specific policies, but to communicate her belief that protecting life should be at the center of all laws pursued in Texas or by any
other government. Even though Texas banned abortion last year, she said, that doesn’t mean the work is done.
“Just because laws are passed it doesn’t mean they’re safe,” Raab said. “It continues on to infinity. I mean, look at Roe v Wade.”
That concept — that there are no final victories or defeats, and the country’s most pitched political battles are refought generation to generation — was also one articulated by Beto O’Rourke in his campaign for governor last year.
Raab said a politician’s stance on abortion is, and would always be, her primary consideration.
“Probably until I kick the bucket, it’s going to be my issue,” she said.
From the stage just outside the Capitol, a Christian rock band played and the governor and others delivered speeches celebrating the successes of the antiabortion movement in Texas to the cheering crowd.
But just a few feet outside the Capitol’s gates, gazing up the hill at the big crowd, a group of more hard-line advocates bemoaned the complacency of what they described as the “pro-life establishment.”
Among them was Daryl Rodriguez, of Love and Truth Ministries, an activist from Spring Branch who identifies himself as an abortion abolitionist.
Although those performing abortions can be punished with life in prison under Texas law, Rodriguez says this doesn’t go far enough, and those who obtain abortions should also be held criminally culpable.
Texas has so-called “fetal homicide” laws that allow a defendant to be charged with double murder if they kill a pregnant person, he noted.
He believes abortion should be treated the same as if someone murdered their 2-year-old child, including the possibility of the death penalty.
A woman who underwent an abortion was charged last year in Starr County with murder, although the charges were quickly dropped after the prosecutor acknowledged there was no legal basis for them. There has not been widespread calls in Texas for criminal charges for those who receive abortions.
At the rally Saturday, several speakers called for the crowd to pray for doctors who perform abortions and for those who seek them.
“We believe (abortion) is murder. Murder should be criminalized,” Rodriguez said. “That’s what we say to the prolife establishment: If you believe it’s murder, why aren’t you criminalizing it?”