Fifty-one years ago on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, which recognized a woman’s right to privacy when it comes to their reproductive health. My predecessor in Congress, Eddie Bernice Johnson, had just been sworn into the Texas House with her freshman colleague, Sarah Weddington, a lead attorney for unnamed plaintiff Jane Roe, when the call was made to the Texas House Floor that Texas women had won us the right to abortion.
But now, I’m watching Texas women suffer because of Republican anti-freedom authoritarianism. Today, I possess fewer rights than my mother possessed during her reproductive years. Why and how did we get here? The answer is quite simple: former President Donald Trump. His right-wing Supreme Court majority overturned Roe just as he intended.
As Trump continues to boast about dismantling women’s reproductive rights, MAGA Republicans have followed his lead and passed similar draconian abortion bans and in twenty one states so far, including Texas’ S.B. 8, which banned bans abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. And we know they want to take things even further by passing a national abortion ban.
