What They’re Saying: Texas Case Highlights “The GOP’s Gaping…Vulnerabilities on Abortion,” “Cruz—a Certified Weasel and a Coward”

A new wave of reporting highlights “the GOP’s gaping…vulnerabilities on abortion,” how the issue could help increase “turnout in Arizona, Florida and other crucial states,” and spotlighting  Ted Cruz as a “certified weasel and a coward.” 

Here’s what they’re saying: 

MSNBC The Beat with Ari Melber: Republicans Run from Abortion Crackdown They Engineered
December 13, 2023

• Ari Melber: “[When asked] directly about Kate Cox, who we’ve reported had to flee Texas to terminate a procedure that was putting her fertility at risk… both [Texas Senators] have spent their public careers for decades trying to get Justices on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe, which is what they did. They support what’s happening in Texas. But listen to…how they try to duck the questions about their constituent Ms. Cox.”
  
  Reporter: “Do you agree with Attorney General Paxton’s actions and what he did?”
  
  Ted Cruz: “Just call our Press Office”
  
  Reporter: “I have and I actually haven’t received an answer. So is there anything that you’d like to say right now on this?”
  
  Ted Cruz: “Call our Press Office”
  
  

• Ari Melber: “Ted Cruz goes from anti-abortion warrior…to ‘call our press office.’ … It tells you something about the state of this abortion fight in America that those individuals I just showed you — Texas Senators in Republican areas — are afraid to admit that the facts that you see in public and what’s happened to Ms. Cox and others, is their doing.”

The New York Times: Democrats Seize on Texas Case in Push for Abortion Rights 
By Lisa Lerer
December 13, 2023

• [Democratic] candidates in battleground states jumped on Ms. Cox’s plight as a cautionary tale for voters next year, highlighting her situation as they have done with the wrenching, deeply personal stories of other women and girls since Roe was overturned.

• Representative Colin Allred, the Texas Democrat running to unseat Senator Ted Cruz, cast the ruling as emblematic of the kind of abortion bans Republicans would enact across the country.
  
  
• “This is not an unintended consequence of these extreme policies — this is exactly what folks like Ted Cruz wanted and a pretty predictable outcome of their policies,” Mr. Allred said. “Unfortunately, Kate’s story is not going to be the last one we hear like this.”

Axios: Kate Cox’s abortion story set to haunt Republicans in 2024 campaign
By Zachary Basu 
November 13, 2023

• The story of Kate Cox…has forced Texas to reckon with the human consequences of its near-total abortion ban: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and other skittish Republicans have pointedly refused to weigh in.
  
  
• Cruz is running for re-election next year, and his seat is viewed as one of the…pickup opportunities for Democrats.
  

Vanity Fair: Ted Cruz Won’t Discuss Texas’s Horrific Treatment of Woman Denied Abortion Despite Fatal Fetus Diagnosis (Because He Knows How Bad It Looks)
By Bess Levin 
December 13, 2023 

• Ted Cruz rarely misses an opportunity to weigh in on an issue he thinks will score him some air time on Fox News and ingratiate him to the right. But apparently, even [he] doesn’t want to be associated with Texas’s appalling treatment of Kate Cox.
  
  
• Cruz was asked three separate times on Tuesday to weigh in on the matter but refused to do so, telling NBC News to speak to his press office, which didn’t respond to a request for comment. When asked again on Wednesday, the Texas lawmaker again refused.

• Like Cruz—a certified weasel and a coward—Texas’s other senator, John Cornyn, has refused to weigh in on the matter.

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