In response to Texas’ Trigger Law taking effect on August 25, Beto O’Rourke launched an attack ad against Pro-Life Governor Greg Abbott and our state’s life-saving laws. This ad calls Abbott and Texas’ abortion bans “extreme.” What is actually extreme about this commercial is the misinformation about our Pro-Life policies and how ardently pro-abortion Beto O’Rourke is.
During his entire active political career, Beto has consistently voted against Life, making abortion one of his top priorities. While in US Congress from 2013-2019, Beto made his pro-abortion position abundantly clear. In both 2013 and 2015, he voted in favor of the Woman’s Health Protection Act, a bill which not only codified Roe, but would have overturned every single state-level protection for the preborn. He also voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill which would have banned abortions at 20 weeks nationally. These votes earned him 100% scores from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and praise from anti-Lifers everywhere, encouraging him to run for higher office.
Beto was outspoken on his anti-Life position during his failed bids for Senate in 2018 and for the presidency in 2020. While on the campaign trail in 2019, Beto blasted then-candidate Joe Biden’s support for the life-saving Hyde amendment, an important element of federal legislation that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. He called Biden “absolutely wrong” for refusing to condemn the long-standing bipartisan Hyde amendment.
When asked at a town hall whether he supports third trimester abortions, Beto responded that he believes “this is a decision that neither you, nor I, nor the United States government should be making. That’s a decision for the woman to make”, implicitly affirming that abortion should be legalized up until the moment of birth.
Now, after failing in both of his previous attempts for higher office, O’Rourke is attempting to take down Governor Abbott, making abortion a central issue to the campaign. Beto’s very first video hit of the campaign centers completely on the Texas Trigger Law, a bill passed during the last legislative session that adds penalties to abortionists who violate our law prohibiting abortion from the moment of fertilization.
Of course, the video severely mischaracterizes the Pro-Life policies in our state. The commercial uses inflammatory rhetoric, alleging that women are “no longer free to make decisions about their own bodies” in the state of Texas, that “women will die because of [Texas Pro-Life laws]”, and that O’Rourke “will give women freedom back.”
However, intentionally ending a preborn child’s life is not an act of freedom. Texas women are still free to make decisions about their own bodies; but, that decision making is curtailed when that decision involves prematurely ending the life of the other human being growing inside her. Women are not and will not die because of our life-saving legislation. And repealing our Pro-Life laws would not give any freedom back to women — it would only take away the freedom to live from preborn children, including preborn female children. The Right to Life is the most important freedom of all, yet mention of Life is completely absent from Beto’s attack.
Our life-saving laws were established by elected officials, including Governor Abbott, who won their elections due to their commitment to the Right to Life. Pro-Life Texans voted for a majority Pro-Life Legislature and for a Pro-Life governor who made the passage of our Pro-Life laws possible. Ending abortion was no secret goal of these Pro-Life elected officials, and now that Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortionists in Texas are shutting their doors, the Texans who voted for those legislators are celebrating.