Texas GOP Platform Endorses Death Penalty for Abortion Patients

Republicans are telling us exactly who they are

We need to talk about Plank 35 in the Texas GOP platform. Because while there’s been lots of coverage about how extremist the state’s Republican convention was, people seem to have missed the fact that delegates adopted a platform that calls for abortion patients to be punished as murderers. In Texas, that could mean the death penalty.

I wish I was exaggerating.

The GOP’s platform demands “equal protection for the preborn,” and for Texas legislation to give fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses “equal protection of the law.”

If you’re a regular reader, you know that “equal protection” is a call for abortion to be treated as homicide, and for abortion patients to be prosecuted as murders. (Remember South Carolina’s Prenatal Equal Protection Act, and Georgia’s Prenatal Equal Protection Act? Both were bills to make abortion punishable as a homicide.)

That’s because “equal protection” is the polite-sounding rallying cry of abortion ‘abolitionists’—radical anti-abortion activists who say women aren’t victims in abortion, but killers. The once-fringe group has been gaining more power and influence since Roe was overturned, with some running for and winning state office.

So the use of “equal protection” in the Texas GOP platform isn’t an oversight or ignorance about what the term means. In fact, the plank was adopted in 2022 after a lobbying effort by Abolish Abortion Texas. On a webpage congratulating themselves on that success, the group declared “we added an equal protection plank” after speaking at the convention, distributing thousands of pamphlets and messaging thousands of delegates.

“Going into this convention, we said there would be people within the RPT [Republican Party of Texas] that would be fighting against us. We said that some Texas Republicans don’t want the equal protection of the laws for preborn babies. We said that some would be trying to weaken the stance of the RPT on abortion, even in a potentially post-Roe America.”

But, the group added, they not only managed to get equal protection in the platform, but language calling for the Texas legislature to “nullify any and all federal statutes, regulations, orders, and court rulings that would deny these rights” and “adopt effective tools to ensure the enforcement of our laws to protect life when doctors or district attorneys fail to do so.” (Check out Plank 217)

In other words: extremists who would see women given the death penalty are dictating Texas Republicans’ abortion policy.

And the Texas GOP knows it. Last week, for example, Republican state Rep. Stephanie Klick attacked her primary opponent David Lowe, saying, “the legislation he prefers would give the death penalty to women who had an abortion. I don't support that.” Lowe responded by insisting, “What I support is the Republican Party of Texas platform on abortion which is the same laws that protect you and me to protect everybody else to include pre-born children.”

Again, these are no longer ‘fringe’ groups. This week, NBC News reported on the rise of so-called abolitionists and how they’re using social media and state legislators to advance their extremism. From law professor Mary Ziegler:

“There are more legislators who are willing to hear these bills or take them seriously. They are no longer saying this is fringy and ridiculous or we aren’t going to entertain this.”

In fact, abortion rights group If/When/How reports that since 2022, Republican lawmakers have introduced at least 26 ‘abolition’ bills. (Many of which I’ve reported here at Abortion, Every Day.) And while mainstream anti-abortion groups claim that they would never, ever punish women who have abortions, pretty much every anti-abortion leader and organization in the country signed onto a letter last year calling for “equal protection for children in the womb.”

What’s also worth noting is that ‘equal protection’ isn’t just about punishing abortion patients—but fetal personhood. Under an equal protection mandate, fetuses would be granted legal representation and women who drink or smoke while pregnant could be charged with ‘child endangerment.’ And forget IVF!

This year’s platform also demands public schools show the anti-abortion propaganda videos we’ve seen pushed in other states, and for the state to close “discriminatory loopholes that fail to protect preborn children suspected of having a ‘fetal anomaly.’ (In other words, they want to ensure that women are forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term.)

The Texas Republican platform is known for being wacky in the scariest way possible: delegates this year called for the Bible to be taught in public school, for gender-affirming care to be labeled ‘child abuse’, and for the government to release all information on UFOs. But the bizarre extremism doesn’t make this document a joke or any less dangerous. We’re talking about the official priority list of the governing party of the second-most populous state in America.

They are telling us what they believe and what they want for the future of this country.

All of which is to say: this is a big fucking deal and should be treated as such. In truth, I can’t believe no one has written about it thus far. After all, it was just a few months ago that three Texas Republicans from Hood County were dragged for simply attending a meeting held by Abolish Abortion Texas. Now here we are with the GOP’s abortion position being crafted by that very same group!

I must have paraphrased Maya Angelou a hundred times by now, but it’s always relevant: when they show you who they are—believe them.

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