Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), newly minted as Democrats’ general election challenger for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the election deciding control of Cruz’s Senate seat later this year, pledged in a victory speech after his Democratic primary win to make Roe v. Wade the “law of the land again.” The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case established nationwide legal protections for abortion until a reversal by the same court in 2022 with three nominees of ex-President Donald Trump on the bench.
“We’re going to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again when I’m in the United States Senate,” Allred said. “So that folks like Ted Cruz can’t force Texas women to flee their own state to get the health care that they need. It’s unacceptable. It’s outrageous. […] There’s one thing I know about us as Texans. It’s that we believe in freedom. And that’s what this election is going to be all about — restoring our freedoms.”
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to undo the protections previously established by Roe v. Wade allowed state officials around the country to put in place their own legal frameworks for abortion, and in Texas, with Republicans controlling the state government, that meant sharp restrictions. Allred said in his victory speech that “26,000 Texas women have given birth to their rapist’s child since this law passed.”
Similar problems have been extensive in states with expansive Republican control of the state government. Kentucky, though state voters recently gave Democrat Andy Beshear another term as governor, has grappled with sweeping restrictions on abortion that provide no exceptions for situations involving rape or incest. Republicans commandingly control the legislature in the often GOP-leaning state. Even medical exceptions to abortion restrictions aren’t a model of compassion and help, because the period in which medical personnel on a case grapple with whether the situation is serious enough to warrant the exception can facilitate damaging health impacts for the pregnant individual while they’re just waiting for treatment.
