In response to the two-year anniversary of Texas’ trigger law banning abortion after Donald Trump’s handpicked Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, DNC Spokesperson Maddy Mundy issued the following statement: 

“Because of Donald Trump, for two years, women in Texas have been unable to make deeply personal decisions about their own health care as they contend with Trump’s near-total abortion ban in the state. Since Trump overturned Roe, Texans’ reproductive choices and health outcomes have only declined as they face the daunting costs of out-of-state travel for reproductive care, risk criminal penalties for medical treatments, and sadly witness infant mortality rates spike. Despite these devastating consequences, Donald Trump’s extreme MAGA Republican party’s attacks on women in Texas are only getting started: just this year, Texas Republicans opened the door to subjecting women who receive abortion to the death penalty in their official party platform. Texas is a microcosm for what will happen to the rest of the country if Trump is elected again. If Trump wins, we will see a nationwide abortion ban and the devastating consequences that come with such a law. Thankfully, Texans and Americans across the country are fed up with Trump and MAGA Republicans’ dangerous agenda and they will reject them at the ballot box this November as they support Vice President Harris and Governor Walz pro-freedom agenda.”

In the two years since Trump overturned Roe and allowed Texas Republicans’ trigger law to go into effect, the state has seen a spike in overall infant mortality rates. 

AP: “Infant mortality rate rose 8% in wake of Texas abortion ban, study shows”

“In Texas, the 2022 mortality rate for infants went up 8% to 5.75 per 1,000 births, compared to a 2% increase in the rest of the U.S., according to the study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Among causes of deaths, birth defects showed a 23% increase, compared to a decrease of about 3% in the rest of the U.S. The Texas law blocks abortions after the detection of cardiac activity, usually five or six weeks into pregnancy, well before tests are done to detect fetal abnormalities.”

Washington Post: “Infant death rate spiked in Texas after restrictive abortion law, study finds” 

“The law was implemented some nine months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Researchers warn the findings may foreshadow changes in other states that now ban abortion in all or most instances.

“Infant deaths from fetal abnormalities, the leading cause of death for babies under a year of age, rose by 22.9 percent in Texas in 2022 but fell by 3.1 percent for the rest of the country, the study found. Infant deaths from unintentional injuries also increased by 20.7 percent in Texas in the same period, compared to 1.1 percent nationally.”

NBC News: “Texas abortion ban linked to 13% increase in infant and newborn deaths”

“Lawmakers passed Texas Senate Bill 8, or SB8, in September 2021. The state law banned abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as five weeks. This effectively banned abortion in the state, which used to allow abortion up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. The law did not include exemptions for congenital anomalies, including conditions that will cause a newborn to die soon after birth.” 

STAT: “Infant deaths increased after Texas banned abortion in early pregnancy”

“‘What we know from the literature is that any infant death is a traumatic event to experience,’ she said. ‘But I can imagine that carrying that fetus to term when you could have had the option to terminate is going to just add that additional trauma and heartbreak to the situation.’”

Axios: “Study links spike in infant deaths to Texas abortion ban”

Following Trump’s anti-freedom playbook, Texas Republicans approved a dangerous, anti-reproductive freedom party platform that deems abortion “homicide,” would open the door to the death penalty for women seeking abortion, and criminalizes IVF treatments if enacted into law. 

HuffPost: “The Republican Party of Texas is considering a platform that appears to endorse the death penalty for abortion providers and patients. 

“The GOP platform calls for an ‘equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization,’ and later states that ‘abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide.’ The phrase ‘equal protection of the law’ is used in the anti-choice movement to define abortion as homicide, and criminalizes abortion physicians and patients as murderers.”

Houston Chronicle: “The GOP platform also calls for the state to ban abortion medication and enforce criminal penalties against companies selling them online. And it supports prohibitions on government funding and transportation for women to leave the state to get abortions.” 

Austin American Statesman: “Here’s what the Texas party’s platform says: ‘We urge lawmakers to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization, because abortion violates the United States Constitution by denying such persons the equal protection of the law.’ 

“Another section declares, ‘Abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide.’

Texas Public Radio: “Calls for even stricter abortion laws in first Texas GOP convention since Roe’s overturn”

Donald Trump said state abortion bans were working “brilliantly” weeks before the Texas Supreme Court ruled that medical exemptions did not qualify under the state’s abortion ban.

Trump: “We broke Roe v. Wade and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly … But they’re working, and it’s working the way it’s supposed to.”

Texas Tribune: “Texas Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion laws”

Salon: “‘Gut punch’: Texas Supreme Court says “life-saving exception” is clear enough. Plaintiffs disagree”

Teen Vogue: “Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Women Denied Abortions Despite Pregnancy Complications”

Associated Press: “‘I am outraged on behalf of my fellow plaintiffs who the Court deemed not sick enough,’ [Amanda] Zurawski said. ‘We all deserve bodily autonomy. Every day, people in Texas are being told that they have no options. It’s sickening and wrong.’”

Salon: “‘The fact that this platform could even be brought up for a vote is disturbing,’ Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, told reporters on Monday. ‘But it should remind us how extreme and out of touch Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican Party has become. If we allow Trump to get to the White House, he will subject all women across this country to his agenda of revenge and retribution.’”

CBS Austin: “‘The issue of abortion will be on the ballot, there’s no question about it,’ Gilberto Hinojosa, Chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a press call with reporters on Monday. ‘Every single time this issue has come up, every one of those people has taken the lead from whatever Greg Abbott and the MAGA Republicans tell him to do.’”

Salon: “‘I wasn’t dead enough for an abortion’: Texas mom blames Trump for almost losing her life”

“Texas Republicans imposed a near-total ban on abortion following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, a move that has been followed by complaints, from pregnant people and their doctors, that the prohibition is unclear on when a pregnancy can be terminated to protect a life.

“Last week, the state’s all-Republican Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge from women who said their lives were endangered as a result of complicated pregnancies that their doctors were hesitant to properly treat; the court said abortions could go ahead based on the ‘good faith judgment’ of a medical professional that an individual would be ‘unlikely to survive.’

“But what if a doctor performs an abortion that a court later decides wasn’t absolutely necessary? Under current state law, that could mean a sentence of life in prison. Some Republicans want to go even further than that.”

Trump loves to brag about how he overturned Roe and paved the way for cruel abortion bans across the country.

Trump: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of … Roe v. Wade.”

The Hill: “Trump says he has ‘no regrets’ about Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade”

“‘People are very happy about it,’ Trump said in an interview with CBS News. ‘No regrets, no. I wouldn’t have regrets. I did something most people felt was undoable.’

“Anti-abortion activists, working with former Trump administration officials, have been laying the groundwork for the next Republican administration to apply the Comstock Act to prevent the mailing of any abortion drugs and materials, effectively banning all abortions without needing Congress to act.”

Trump: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it. … Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it, and we did something that was a miracle.”

Trump: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone … Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is finally agreed to. Without me the pro Life movement would have just kept losing. Thank you President TRUMP!!!”

Trump: “I’m the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade, and everybody said that was an impossible thing to do. I put on three Supreme Court justices. Very few people have had that privilege or honor.”

Trump: “Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life because it gave pro-life something to negotiate with. Pro-life had absolutely nothing, being stuck in Roe v. Wade, to negotiate with. … And look, everybody that was president wanted to get rid and tried to get rid of Roe v. Wade … For fifty years, this has been going on. I was able to do it, and I was very honored to do it.”