NARAL Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue told a fawning crowd at the Democratic National Convention that Texas women don’t back down from a challenge. “Texas women are tough,” she gushed. “We approach challenges with clear eyes and full hearts. To succeed in life, all we need are the tools, the trust, and the chance to chart our own path.” At Texas Right to Life, we couldn’t agree with that assessment more. Indeed, women deserve every opportunity to pursue happiness, success, and health. That’s why Ilyse’s next comments in favor of unrestricted abortion on-demand were bewildering.
Ilyse assumed a reminiscing tone, saying, “I was fortunate enough to have these things when I found out I was pregnant years ago. I wanted a family, but it was the wrong time. I made the decision that was best for me: to have an abortion…”
The crowd erupted in applause for Ilyse’s choice to end the Life of her son or daughter because the ‘timing wasn’t right.’ This is not surprising, because the abortion plank of the Democratic platform and the mission of NARAL are one and the same: to force taxpayers to fund all elective abortions and to abolish all restrictions on abortion currently in effect.
Hogue related that she and her husband are now “parents to two incredible children,” seemingly bringing the story of self-determination full-circle. The bottom line for Hogue and her anti-Life compatriots is that there is no universal Right to Life. In Hogue’s reality, the strong determine their destinies by obliterating any inconvenience in their path. What they want, not what is right, trumps any consideration of justice or equality. This reality is exceedingly ironic considering Hogue’s ilk have harnessed justice and equality language to further their agenda. Reproductive justice. Gender equality. They are smokescreens for a dark, insidious worldview in which only the powerful thrive.
Hogue then characterized her story as normal – a brilliant rhetorical tactic. “My story is not unique,” she said. “About one in three American women have abortions by the age of 45.” That’s quite a gratuitous approach at math, considering the real figure is less than 28%. And among those women, we know that coercion and manipulation undergirded an overwhelming number of abortion decisions.
The abortion boss said that we can empower women by giving them “accurate information,” and “access to healthcare.” The problem? Her movement is standing in the way of informed consent before abortion and adequate funding of comprehensive women’s healthcare facilities. In fact, abortion advocates like Hogue bully local governments into penalizing women’s centers offering abortion alternatives and denounce scientific consensus on the relationship between abortion and long-term health problems like breast and cervical cancer and secondary infertility.
So when Ilyse Hogue characterizes herself as a typical Texas woman speaking for her fellow Texas women, we say No. Texas women deserve better than abortion. Texas women deserve comprehensive women’s healthcare and accurate information about the physical and emotional effects of abortion. Texas women deserve to be treated with dignity from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death, and that dignity precludes them from being aborted or killed at any age in any setting for any reason. Texas women deserve support from their educators, employers, medical professionals, family, friends, and elected officials when they face an unplanned pregnancy or unexpected pregnancy diagnosis. Texas women are tougher than the misogyny of Big Abortion. Texas women denounce the anti-woman antics of the political abortion lobby. We succeeded in 2014 and we will succeed again in November.