Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters have chosen to maintain access to abortion in every state where the issue was on the ballot.
Measures to protect access to abortion are scheduled to go before voters in nine states this November. But in Texas, which has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, no such option exists.
Instead, efforts are underway to turn the Texas Supreme Court seat race into a referendum on abortion and oust three Republican justices up for reelection: Jimmy Blacklock, Jane Brand, and John Devine. It is.
Justices on the all-Republican court, including Blacklock, Brand, and Devine, argued in Zulawski v. Texas, which sought to clarify medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, that abortions were carried out despite dangerous pregnancy complications. rejected the appeal of a group of women who had been denied the right to do so. The court also rejected Kate Cox’s request for an exception to the state’s abortion ban after her unborn child was diagnosed with a fatal disease.
Cox and some of the plaintiffs have since become abortion rights advocates, working with a political action committee called Find Out to represent Democratic challenger Dashawn Jones on behalf of BlackRock, Devine and Brand. , Kristin Weems and Bonnie Lee Goldstein are rallying voters to elect them to the state Legislature. supreme court.
Lauren Miller, one of the plaintiffs in Zulawski v. Texas, said in an ad in Find Out:
“For me, it’s important to humanize this issue and help voters understand that we are real people,” Miller, 37, said of why she joined the campaign. he told Newsweek magazine. “This is truly a life-or-death race for Texans.”
Photo illustration: Newsweek/Getty Images
Cox and the other three plaintiffs in the Zulawski case (Taylor Edwards, Caitlin Kash and Ashley Brandt) told Barron’s that they hope to highlight to voters the stakes in the Texas Supreme Court race. They said they have been sharing their stories.
“The best path to bringing real change to Texas is to use our votes as our voices and say with all seriousness that we do not accept the way the Supreme Court ruled in Cox and Zarowski.” “I think that’s what I mean,” Edwards told Barron’s. .
Gina Ortiz Jones, founder of PAC and former deputy secretary of the U.S. Air Force, began investigating the state Supreme Court after reading the Cox decision.
“I thought it was ridiculous,” Jones told Newsweek magazine, adding that the court’s decision provided a blueprint for other courts on how to override medical exceptions.
“I grew up in a part of San Antonio where the phrase ‘try and find’ is not uncommon. So that’s where our name comes from.”
Republicans have won every Texas Supreme Court election since 1989, but Jones is optimistic that Democrats can win if voters understand the stakes.
“We are the epicenter of the biggest problem in this country,” Jones said. “How could I not try this?”
He said a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group for PAC shows that a majority of Texans support abortion rights, and 90% say abortion should be legal to save the mother’s life. They pointed out that most respondents agree, including 84% who said they were voting for the former. President Donald Trump.
A PAC poll found that nearly half of likely voters don’t remember seeing or hearing anything about the Texas Supreme Court last year. They also showed that Texas Supreme Court races statistically trend toward ties when voters are shown stories about how the court’s decisions have affected women.
Jones said it was “remarkable” that the race would be competitive because voters had been kept uninformed until now.
To address the digital divide, the PAC is working to raise awareness about the Texas Supreme Court’s abortion decision and the anti-abortion positions of sitting justices seeking re-election.
In a statement provided to Newsweek, Blacklock said the court works “in every case to understand Texas law as it stands and to apply Texas law fairly and equally to all parties in court.” We are working hard.” Additionally, the political power to create and change laws rests with the people of Texas, not the state’s judges, and we will work hard to maintain their authority through the democratic process. ” The Bland and Devine campaigns have been contacted for comment via email or the contact form on their website.
“Before I entered politics, my beliefs were forged in the crucible of the pro-life movement,” Devine said in a 2012 campaign speech, saying he had been arrested 37 times outside abortion clinics.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Brand wrote an opinion in Zulawski v. Texas stating that the exception to Texas’ abortion law is sufficiently broad as written. And Blacklock was appointed to the court by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in 2018 said, There’s no need to guess or question.”
Texans “frankly have the same information divide that exists across the country, but unfortunately what Texas has is a six-week ban on abortions for almost a year and exceptions for rape and incest. “There are already so many stories of women who have suffered because they didn’t acknowledge that,” Jones added, “a year before Roe fell.”
Texas’ six-week abortion ban went into effect in September 2021. The state joins more than a dozen Republican-controlled states in banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped constitutional protections. The abortion will take place in the summer of 2022.
ProPublica reported Wednesday that 28-year-old mother Joseli Varnica died after doctors delayed treating her miscarriage, citing the law, days after a six-week abortion ban went into effect.
Abortion, Jones said, is “one of those issues that is really bipartisan because people understand that abortion shouldn’t be a partisan thing. That’s why we have really great momentum. I think there is,” he added.
But Todd Currie, a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, said he has “very high doubts” that a Democrat will be elected this November.
“Given how long it has been since Democrats won statewide office in Texas, I highly doubt that their first victory will come in the state Supreme Court race,” he told Newsweek. spoke.
“That would be important simply as a signal that Democrats can win the state, but in terms of actual policy opportunities, at least five Democrats are elected to the court before we can expect any significant policy action from the court.” Of course, that’s not likely to happen.”
Still, Jones and the women hope their efforts will succeed in bringing at least one dissenting voice to the court.
“If we get that in Kansas, Ohio…we’re pretty optimistic,” Jones said, pointing to two reliably Republican states where voters supported abortion rights after Roe’s ouster. ” he said.
She points out that having the only Democrat on the court can serve as a powerful dissenting voice, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did in the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruling.
The Texas Supreme Court’s opinion “kind of feels like it was copied and pasted for someone else,” Jones said. “So if you have an opposing view, it becomes difficult for someone to do that because they have to consider the points that are raised against that view.”
Cox said he hopes Texans who have seen the impact of the state’s abortion ban will make their voices heard at the polls.
Texans “don’t want to see the women they love denied hospitals and have to flee their homes to get the care they need,” she told Newsweek magazine. “What we’re seeing is a lot of anger, frustration, betrayal…I think it’s going to lead Texans to prioritize reproductive freedom.”
Blunt added that unseating even one Republican incumbent would send “a message that we’re not going to stand for this.” “You have ruled against us. You are hurting us, and we are going to stand up for ourselves.”
