Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott attempted to respond to a question from a reporter about denying victims of rape and incest more than six weeks to get an abortion by claiming Texas is tough on crime.
Asked by the new Texas law requires a victim of rape or incest to carry the pregnancy to term, Abbott responded, “It doesn’t require that at all because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person, ah, to be able to, ah, get an abortion. So for one, it doesn’t provide that. That said, however, let’s make something very clear: 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.”
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas “cleared” just 21% of reported rape cases in 2019. This is a mix of convictions, dropped cases, acquitals and cases where they identified a likely attacker but could not develop enough evidence to proceed with a prosecution. Oh, and the clearance rate has nothing to do with determining whether the victim has a legal right to seek an abortion.