Jackson Lee: Texas Women Are ‘Literally Living in the 1800s’ — ‘Victims of Bounty Hunters’

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the Texas abortion law made Texas women the victims of bounty hunters like in the 1800s.

Jackson Lee said, “It’s a health crisis that’s going on in Texas. It’s a travesty. It is a state full of sadness, and it has women fleeing. The Mississippi law is 15 weeks. Roe v. Wade is 24 weeks or at viability. We know that that is an honest and effective definition, but also it is an effective line to draw. You’re right. At six weeks, no one is able to discern whether they’re pregnant or not. That means the victim of incest, a 13-year-old girl, or the victim of rape. What’s happening now is those who have means, who are able economically, can flee, mostly to Oklahoma. can you believe it? That is not a liberal state. They’re fleeing to Oklahoma. But the actual crisis takes me back to the bounty hunters of slaves who were attempting to free themselves out of the bondage of slavery. We have now put 21st-century women, Texas women, college students, poor women, rape victims, incest victims, and we have made them the victims of bounty hunters.”

She added, “Senator Klobuchar and I have introduced the anti-vigilante bill that we want to push through right now. We want the Supreme Court to throw both laws out, but our vigilante bill makes those bounty hunters that would get $10,000 in Texas criminals subject to fines and incarceration. What is happening is that we’re literally living in the 1800s, and women, 21st-century women, are the victims of bounty hunters as well as the providers who they are going after. It’s a place of intimidation and fear.”

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