Gov. Abbott Says Texas Will ‘Eliminate All Rapists’ Despite Having Highest Number Of Rapes In Nation

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) on Tuesday claimed that his state’s restrictive new abortion law doesn’t force victims of rape to continue their pregnancy because it “provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion.”

At the signing ceremony of the restrictive voting law on Tuesday, Abbott was asked if his law would require that rape or incest victims continue their pregnancies. The new abortion law, which became law after the Supreme Court refused to block it last week, bans abortion when a fetal heartbeat is identified or as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The period is substantially before many women even find out about their pregnancy.

“Obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion, and so, for one, it doesn’t provide that,” Abbott said Tuesday. “That said rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.”

In response, many Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), have denounced Abbott’s comments, saying that it comes from “deep ignorance.”

“I’m sorry we have to break down Biology 101 on national television, but in case no one has informed him before in his life, six weeks pregnant means two weeks late for your period,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview Tuesday with Anderson Cooper on CNN. “And two weeks late on your period … can happen if you’re stressed, if your diet changes or for really no reason at all. So you don’t have six weeks.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday also criticized Abbott’s comments, especially his promise to “eliminate all rapists.”

“If Governor Abbott has a means of eliminating all rapists or all rape from the United States, then there’d be bipartisan support for that,” Psaki told reporters during the briefing. “[But] there has never in history of the country and the world been any leader who’s ever been able to eliminate rape, eliminate rapists from our streets.”

FBI statistics show that Texas has the highest number of rapes in the nation.