Ted Cruz Argued States Should Be Allowed to Ban Emergency Abortions

Texas Senator Ted Cruz complained during Tuesday night’s debate against his Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), that people need to stop asking him if he will support exceptions to Texas’ extreme abortion restrictions. 

Texas has some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the country. As it stands, the law includes no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and earlier this month the Supreme Court allowed Texas to continue implementing an effective ban on emergency abortions, even in hospitals.

As it turns out, Cruz quietly threw his support behind a right-wing bid to the Supreme Court that would have effectively stripped doctors of their right to perform emergency abortions in hospitals nationwide. Cruz was one of 26 U.S. senators who signed onto an amicus curiae supporting Idaho’s Republican attorney general, Raúl Labrador, in his bid to overrule a Biden administration directive requiring emergency rooms to provide necessary abortion care to patients. 

In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s demise, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance alerting hospitals that they were required to “provide stabilizing medical treatment to your pregnant patients,” including abortion care, “regardless of the restrictions in the state.” The directive was based on the provisions established by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a Reagan-era law requiring hospital emergency departments to treat individuals who seek care regardless of ability to pay, citizenship, or demographics. 

“The DOJ is attempting to contrive protections for elective induced abortion. Yet, EMTALA does not mention abortion once, and a proper interpretation shows the statute does not require ‘stabilizing’ abortions,” the amicus brief says. 

“Idaho’s law is consistent with EMTALA since it does not restrict medically-indicated maternal-fetal separations,” the brief adds, “Consequently, the DOJ is seeking to contrive a health exception for emergency room doctors to perform elective induced abortions, which do not consider the unborn child as a second patient, and, in fact, directly intend harm to the child.” 

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While Idaho’s abortion laws do provide an exception for instances in which the health and life of the mother are in jeopardy, the wording of the statutes is vague. Doctors in the state find themselves juggling their responsibility towards their patients, with the threat that they could face felony charges should their reasoning for terminating a patient’s pregnancy fail to satisfy the state government. 

The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Idaho but earlier this month declined to intervene in Texas, where the state can now enforce a ban on emergency room abortions, and continue threatening doctors — all to the detriment of their patients. 

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“It’s indefensible that we have Texas women being turned away from hospitals, bleeding out in their cars and waiting rooms, being found by their husbands,” Allred told Cruz during their debate on Tuesday. “All of a sudden, the protector of women and girls is going to be Senator Cruz, who thinks it’s perfectly reasonable that if a girl is raped by a relative of hers, a victim of incest, that she should be forced to carry that child to term and give birth to it. You think that’s perfectly reasonable, but now you’re going to set yourself up as a protector of women and girls. It’s laughable.” 

The race between Allred and Cruz is too close for the incumbent senator’s comfort, with some polls granting Cruz only a single digit lead over his challenger. If Allred manages to pull off the upset, the race could tip control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. Texas lawmakers have taken it upon themselves to become leaders in the GOP’s project to strip women across the nation of their reproductive rights, and as women in the state push for the restoration of their bodily autonomy, Cruz has no answer for his own record. He just wants everyone to stop asking about it.