Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Tuesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) comments that Texas aspires to “eliminate all rapists” when asked about the new abortion law not having a rape or incest exception were “disgusting.”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “I find Governor Abbott’s comments disgusting.”
She continued, “This idea that we’re going to quote, unquote end rape when the same type of rape culture and misogynistic culture that informed this abortion law, to begin with, those beliefs are held by the governor himself and the Texas state legislature. Frankly, there are many people in power, as we know from the Me Too movement, that commit sexual assault, that help their friends cover up these crimes, and some of them even serve in the same state legislatures that are voting on these anti-choice bills. It’s awful. He speaks from such a place of deep ignorance. And it’s not just ignorance. It’s ignorance that’s hurting people across this country.”
Cooper asked, “You cited rape culture and misogynistic culture are behind this Texas bill, to begin with. Can you just explain that how you feel about that to people?”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “Sure. So when we talk about the law that was passed in Texas, we know that anti-choice bills are not about being pro-life because if they were about being pro-life, then the Republican Party would support frankly an agenda that helps guaranteed health care, that helps ensure that people that do give birth that don’t have the resources can have those care for a child.”
She added, “What this is about is controlling women’s bodies and controlling people who are not cisgender men. Someone like me, who is a woman or any menstruating person in this country, cannot make decisions over their own body. People like Governor Abbott and Mitch McConnell want to have more control over a woman’s body than that woman or that person has over themselves. What that shares with rape culture is that sexual assault is about the abusive power, and sexual assault is about asserting control over another person, and the ease with which these men seek to do that to other people is atrocious. It is morally reprehensible. They cannot even begin to understand the agonizing decisions that people have to make in cases of miscarriage, rape and incest.”
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