Rep. Veasey (TX-33) Spearheads Letter Asking Local Officials to Reconsider Ban Stripping Essential Access to Health Care for Texas Women

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – Rep. Veasey (TX-33) led a group of his fellow Texans in admonishing Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other senior officials to reconsider a statewide ban on abortions during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak—a move that strips away safe, essential and time-sensitive reproductive health care for Texas women.

"Our state's leadership must be laser focused on combatting the Coronavirus pandemic and saving lives," said Congressman Marc Veasey (TX-33). "Instead, we are seeing our state's senior leaders further jeopardize safe health care for Texas woman at a time when they should be focused on expanding crucial services like Medicaid to the five million Texans who are currently uninsured will not suffer from lack of access to healthcare during this time."

This policy is especially damaging because there is not definitive evidence of the effect of COVID-19 on pregnant women and fetuses. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has stated in its literature they do not know whether COVID-19 will cause problems to pregnant women or unborn fetuses. Additionally, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) guidance has stated, "Pregnant women should be considered an at-risk population for COVID-19"1 It is well-established that the longer women must wait for abortion care it becomes increasingly difficult access. Given the dwindling number of women's reproductive healthcare providers in Texas, this policy will prove to be disastrous for Texas women.

Rep. Marc Veasey (TX-33) was joined Representatives Colin Allred (TX-32), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Lloyd Doggett (TX-35), Al Green (TX-09), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Lizzie Fletcher (TX-33) and Joaquin Castro (TX-20).

The full text of the letter is available here.