Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two in the Dallas area, was eager to have a third child. She recently learned, however, that her third pregnancy would come to a tragic end: The fetus has a genetic condition that’s likely to cause stillbirth or the death of the baby shortly after it’s born.
Because Cox’s other children were delivered by cesarean section, this pregnancy creates a risk of serious medical issues — she’s already had four emergency room visits recently — so she went to court to get a judge-approved abortion. A state district judge granted the request.
Texas’ scandal-plagued Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, nevertheless intervened in Cox’s plight, fighting vehemently to prevent her from receiving reproductive medical care. Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court sided with Paxton and overturned the court order that would’ve allowed Cox to terminate the doomed pregnancy.
The young mother ultimately left the state to receive medical care that would not be available to her in the Lone Star State.
What do John Cornyn and Ted Cruz — Texas’ Republican U.S. senators — have to say about these high-profile developments in their home state? As NBC News reported, the two policymakers have been awfully eager to avoid the issue.
Cruz and Cornyn were notably skittish when they were asked to weigh in on Cox’s situation. Given multiple opportunities to respond to questions about the case from NBC News, both senators, who are fierce anti-abortion advocates, refused to comment on the Texas Supreme Court’s decision.
Asked whether he has concerns about Texas women’s health, Cornyn, the state’s senior senator, replied, “I’m not a state official, so I’m not going to comment on what state officials are doing. I’m happy to comment on anything that I’m responsible for.”
Cruz, who’s up for re-election next year, wouldn’t even go this far, instead telling NBC News to call his office — which also chose not to comment.
To be sure, the duo’s silence isn’t too surprising. I haven’t seen any polling on this specific issue, but I have a strong hunch that much of the American mainstream would be sympathetic toward Cox, and not Texas Republicans, in this ordeal.
With this in mind, there’s not much of an upside for Cornyn and Cruz to weigh in: If they side with Cox, they’ll make their partisan allies in their home state look worse. If they side with Paxton and the state Supreme Court, they’ll appear callous and extreme on an issue that’s already done real political harm to the GOP.
So, Cornyn and Cruz are exercising their right to remain silent.
But whether their position is politically understandable is ultimately irrelevant. Kate Cox is these senators’ constituent. She needed help as a direct result of policies created and imposed by Cornyn’s and Cruz’s allies. This might seem like a state issue, but these senators routinely express their opinions about matters that have little to do with federal policymaking. For example, Cruz — as much a podcast host as an elected lawmaker — has written op-eds on local law enforcement issues in the Pacific Northwest, and the last time I checked, Portland, Oregon, is roughly 2,000 miles from Houston. They can’t take a related interest about major events in their own state? What’s more, it’s not as if reproductive rights are irrelevant on Capitol Hill. Yes, Cornyn and Cruz can safely say they didn’t have a hand in writing their state’s abortion ban, but both senators vote on judges who might consider abortion-rights cases; they’ll vote on public health officials who’ll help shape health care policy; and they might even be asked to consider proposed federal abortion bans in the near future, creating untold numbers of cases like Cox’s. The senators prefer to shrug their shoulders? Don’t their constituents deserve better?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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