Donald Trump was wrong on Tuesday when he said state voters would now decide their own laws on abortion. The reality in Texas is starkly different. (AP Photo by Alex Brandon)
The former president’s claim during Tuesday’s debate that states will vote on abortion doesn’t match the harsh reality that is Texas.
Texas voters have amended the state constitution 530 times. Don’t expect the 531st to overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Not that Texas voters wouldn’t pass an amendment expanding abortion access. Polls show that nearly half of Texas voters say the state’s abortion laws should be made less strict, according to The Texas Politics Project. They just won’t ever get the chance.
That’s despite former President Donald Trump proclaiming that voters in every state could vote on abortion since Roe. v. Wade was overturned. The claim was among the wildest lies Trump told during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
“But what I did is something for 52 years they’ve been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states,” Trump said. “And through the genius and heart and strength of six supreme court justices we were able to do that.”
“And now states are voting on it. And for the first time you’re going to see — look, this is an issue that’s torn our country apart for 52 years. Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote. And that’s what happened,” he added.
Except in Texas, which doesn’t allow citizen-led initiatives to put constitutional amendments on the ballot. The legislature — controlled by Republicans that passed the trigger-law that put the near-total ban in place once Roe was struck down in 2022 — must initiate amendments to the state constitution.
“It was just a continued theme of misrepresenting the reality of the situation, which is President Trump, while he was in office, put the ball in motion to ban abortion in states across the country,” said Drucilla Tigner, co-executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. The group is the policy and political arm of the three Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas.
“The only way to get abortion back in Texas is for the state legislature to pass a law to repeal the current ban,” Tigner added.
Voters in at least 10 states face ballot measures in November that would protect abortion rights. When people can vote on the constitutional amendments, they pass. Since the fall of Roe, six states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, and Ohio — have voted on abortion related constitutional amendments. Abortion access has won every time.
Instead in Texas, state lawmakers are pouring millions of dollars into Thriving Texas Families, a program that funnels money to anti-abortion groups operating crisis pregnancy centers. The program is riddled with waste, according to a ProPublica investigation, despite receiving $140 million after Roe was overturned.
And when the Texas Legislature convenes in January, expect right-wing lawmakers to target abortion — again. Lawmakers want to restrict women traveling out of state for abortions and put checks on birth control measures and In vitro fertilization, Tigner said.
“Abortion is banned in Texas and that is because of Donald Trump, and the idea that he thinks that he can wave it away and say he didn’t do it, is not true,” she added.
