White House press secretary Jen Psaki mocked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to a question about abortion and rape during Wednesday’s briefing, the latest front in a battle over the state’s new law.
Texas enacted a ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The White House has repeatedly criticized Texas Republicans for passing the legislation and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court for declining to block it.
“If Gov. Abbott has a means of eliminating all rapists or all rape from the U.S., then there’d be bipartisan support for that,” Psaki said. “There has never in the history of the country in the world, been any leader who’s ever been able to eliminate rape, eliminate rapists from our streets.”
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Psaki’s comments came in response to Abbott’s defense of the Texas abortion law when asked about its lack of a rape exception. He argued abortion was generally permitted in the first six weeks of pregnancy and vowed to crack down on rape in the state.
“Let’s make something very clear,” Abbott said. “Rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going after them and arresting them and prosecuting them.”
Abbott’s comments were greeted with applause, unlike in Psaki’s briefing.
President Joe Biden has also criticized the Texas law for lacking a rape exception.
“This law is so extreme it does not even allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest,” he wrote in one of two statements released last week on the subject. “And it not only empowers complete strangers to inject themselves into the most private of decisions made by a woman — it actually incentivizes them to do so with the prospect of $10,000 if they win their case.”
Last week, Psaki clashed with a male news reporter who asked how Biden reconciled his position on abortion with his Catholic faith.
“It’s a woman’s right. It’s a woman’s body, and it’s her choice,” she said. “I know you’ve never faced those choices, nor have you ever been pregnant, but for women out there who have faced those choices, this is an incredibly difficult thing. The president believes that right should be respected.”
Psaki reiterated the administration’s strong opposition to the Texas abortion ban on Wednesday and pledged they would “provide assistance as quickly as we can.”
Biden ordered a governmentwide review on options to preserve Texas women’s access to abortion despite the new law. The White House said he would be willing to sign a bill codifying Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. However, they were still reviewing the specific legislation introduced by House Democrats.
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Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have been frequent targets of barbs at the White House daily briefings.
The two Republicans, chief executives in the largest red states and sometimes discussed as presidential possibilities, have clashed with the Biden administration on COVID-19 policy and a number of other issues.
