In support of the victims of rape in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said in an interview on KXAS-TV, and told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, that women who are raped can take the “morning-after pill.”
So… even though they cannot get an abortion in the state of Texas after a rape, women are allowed to take Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that prevents pregnancy.
Abbott encourages rape victims to get medical attention immediately and report the rape to police.
Of course, preventing a pregnancy in the first place will avoid the abortion issue.
“We want to support those victims, but also those victims can access health care immediately, as well as to report it,” Abbott said.
After the overturning of Roe v Wade by the Supreme Court months ago, a previously voted on trigger law went into effect in Texas, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The trigger law makes it a felony to perform an abortion in the state except when the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
The Texas law is one of the strictest in the US. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.
The Plan B morning-after pill stops an egg from being released and prevents fertilization. In the event that an egg has already been fertilized, the pill prevents the egg from being implanted in the uterus. If the egg has already been implanted, the pill doesn’t work. The pill is most effective when taken within 24 hours.
When Abbott was asked why the state of Texas wants to force a woman who is a victim of rape or incest to give birth, Abbott defended the law.
“Rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure 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. So goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person, will be a victim of rape,” he said.
What Governor Abbott didn’t say is that the Plan B morning after pill, and other medical care, is not always available to low-income people, due to the lack of health insurance or the lack of programs that help women get access to Plan B treatments in Texas.