Ted Cruz and his death cult Republican friends are trying to ban abortion again and it's getting tiresome

Yes, Senator, pregnancy actually is a life-threatening condition. Maybe it's time to focus on that ongoing pandemic

Ted Cruz taking questions in Washington (Andrew Canellero-Reynolds AFP)

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has, to date, claimed over 185,000 American lives. In the state of Texas alone, 3.4 million people have filed for unemployment as a result of the public health crisis. Only 19 percent of parents feel comfortable sending their children to school full-time this fall. And yet, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and 19 of his GOP cohorts aren’t focused on mitigating the spread of this deadly virus, offering long-term financial support to struggling Americans, or ensuring the safety of students. No, instead they’re focused on curtailing access to abortion care by banning Mifeprex, one of two medications that are used to trigger miscarriage.

In a letter to the Food and Drug Administration, Cruz and 19 other anti-abortion zealots called on the federal agency to ban the drug, claiming it is an “imminent hazard to the public health” that poses a “significant threat of danger.” In support of this outright lie (studies have shown medication-induced abortion is extremely safe), Cruz — who is so social media-savvy he once liked a pornographic tweet from his official Twitter account for the world to see — tweeted: “Pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness, and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease.”

The idea that pregnancy is not life-threatening is, of course, as patently untrue as the lie that legal abortion is deadly. All Cruz would have to do is ask Sha-Asia Washington, Shamony Gibson, Lauren Bloomstein, Amber Isaac, Kira Johnson, Shalon Irving — except he can’t. They all died from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications. If this two-time, two-bit Senator simply looked at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that shows the United States has the highest maternal mortality of any developed country, the mere thought of pregnancy being universally “safe” would move him to pained laughter. Hell, if the Senator would simply look at the unacceptably high maternal mortality rate in the state he claims to serve — a state where, in 2017, the maternal mortality rate was the absolute worst in the entire developed world — he would focus on passing legislation to better protect pregnant people and new parents, instead of curtailing access to safe, legal, and medically sound abortion options.

In reality, Cruz knows all this. He’s looked at the data, I’m sure. He knows what dangers the pregnant people of his state face. He might be stupid, but he’s not dumb. He is just banking on the hope that the dwindling number of so-called “pro-life” Americans do not know it. At a time when the majority of the people living in this country support access to legal abortion services — including 79 percent of Independent voters, 55 percent of Republicans, and 73 percent of voters in key “battleground” states — Cruz is hoping to maintain a tight death-grip on government-sanctioned forced birth by placating to a small minority of voters who would rather see pregnant people die than have control over their bodies, their pregnancies, and their future.

This is, of course, nothing new. The GOP has a long, tainted history of ignoring facts and science, reality and data, in favor of political autocracy. But it is Cruz’s second claim — that “the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease” — which shows the true depths of this Senator’s ignorance.

A 2018 study found that women who are denied abortion care are more likely to live in poverty than those who can obtain the care they wanted and needed.

The same study found that when moms are denied abortions, their existing children suffer developmentally and socioeconomically. A reported 59 percent of women who have abortions already have at least one child at home.

Studies have also shown that Black and brown women are disproportionately impacted by anti-abortion legislations; communities that already face additional barriers to reproductive healthcare, prenatal care, postpartum care, and adequate, affordable childcare.

Abortion bans also harm LGBTQ+ people. They make it that much harder for women to secure economic freedom. They harm young people, who are forced to argue for their inherent humanity in court in order to access abortion care sans the permission of their parents or legal guardian.

Currently, medication abortion (a.k.a the abortion pill, which can only be taken in the first few weeks of pregnancy) accounts for 40 percent of all US abortions. When millions of women live over 100 miles away from the nearest clinic that provides abortion services, six states have only one operating abotion clinic, and an unparalleled pandemic has made it that much harder and more dangerous for people to travel, medication abortion is a lifeline for those who need and want to end their pregnancies safely. It can mean the difference between freedom and mandated parenthood; between economic stability and poverty; between healthy children and starving children; between a budding career and long-term unemployment.

Poverty is a disease. Racism is a disease. Sexism is a disease. Bigotry is a disease. But these are diseases this Senator and his Republican colleagues have no interest in curing.

They benefit from the working mom struggling to parent and excel in her career simultaneously, the same way the California state assemblymen were hoping to benefit from assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ absence when they told her she could not vote remotely after having given birth. Wicks showed up on that assembly floor, holding her newborn, to cast her vote. But she shouldn’t have had to.

They believe racial disparities, systemic racism, and civil unrest will aid them in the upcoming presidential election. They believe that politicizing LGBTQ+ healthcare will give them a boost in the polls. They believe in fueling the worst American ideologies, instead of fighting for the best.

So no, Senator Ted Cruz isn’t focused on protecting pregnant people or eradicating preventable diseases or ensuring the safety of Americans. He, like the GOP death cult he subscribes to, is working to ensure those issues continue to exist and impact the most vulnerable among us. And all the while, his ilk gleefully tweet out lie, after lie, after lie.