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Top Republican presidential candidates who have campaigned on antiabortion platforms have avoided directly answering questions this week about Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was denied an abortion in the state after learning that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition.
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After a week of legal limbo, Cox left Texas on Monday to receive abortion care. Cox, who had already been to the emergency room several times during her pregnancy, said doctors told her that carrying the fetus to term would probably jeopardize a future pregnancy, and that her baby, if born at all, would be “in hospice care from the moment she is born.”
In a CNN town hall Tuesday night, host Jake Tapper asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) whether he thought the law should force a woman in Cox’s difficult position to carry a baby to term. DeSantis, who in April signed a six-week abortion ban into law in Florida, did not outright defend officials in Texas but repeatedly described the situation as “difficult.”
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“We got to approach these issues with compassion because these are very difficult issues,” DeSantis told Tapper. “Nobody would wish this to happen on anybody. If you’re in that situation as a mother, that’s an incredibly difficult thing to have to deal with.”
DeSantis also noted that the Florida law he had signed includes exceptions for rape, incest, victims of human trafficking, the life of the mother and fatal genetic conditions. He did not specify whether any of those exceptions would have applied to Cox.
“I have signed legislation that included [those exceptions], and I understand they’re very difficult, and these things get a lot of press attention. I understand,” DeSantis said. “But that’s a very small percentage that those exceptions cover.”
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Texas law includes only narrow exceptions to its abortion ban for medical emergencies. Though Cox’s doctor and a lower-court judge determined that Cox should be allowed to have an abortion under those exceptions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) threatened legal action, and the Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower-court order Monday.
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Later in the CNN town hall, a voter who supported DeSantis asked the Florida governor what he would do as president with regard to abortion. DeSantis said he believed in “creating a culture of life,” but again did not mention the Texas case. Instead, he accused former president Donald Trump of “flip-flopping on the right to life.”
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“It’s a big, diverse country. There’s a lot of division about it,” DeSantis said, referring to abortion. “But you should be consistent in your beliefs, especially on something that’s very fundamental, and [Trump] has not been consistent.”
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Trump, who nominated Supreme Court justices who would later be instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade, has called state-level restrictions “terrible” and refused to say whether he supports a national ban on the procedure. In an email to The Washington Post on Wednesday, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung defended Trump’s conservative record on abortion, noting that the group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America had described the Trump administration as “the most consequential in American history for the pro-life cause.” Cheung also slammed DeSantis’s campaign but did not directly address the Texas abortion case.
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Asked about Cox’s case Tuesday, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley did not say whether she agreed or disagreed with the decision to bar the Texas mother from having an abortion. Instead, she called herself “pro-life” and said she welcomed states that banned abortions. Like DeSantis, she also said the issue required compassion. As a former South Carolina governor, Haley signed into law a 20-week abortion ban and has said she would have supported a six-week ban if the state legislature had passed it when she was in office.
“We don’t want any women to deal with a rare situation and have to deliver in that circumstance any more than we want women getting an abortion at 37, 38, 39 weeks,” Haley said, using language that scientists have said is misleading to refer to extremely rare medical situations. “We have to humanize the situation.”
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Texas’s two Republican senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, have also sidestepped questions about Cox’s case.
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Asked by reporters Tuesday whether he supported Paxton’s actions, Cornyn said he is a federal official and would not comment on what state officials did. Cruz repeatedly referred reporters’ questions about the case to his press office.
Their avoidance of weighing in on the Cox case highlights the political quandary Republicans find themselves in in a post-Roe world after decades of pushing antiabortion policies.
After GOP candidates underperformed in the November 2022 midterm elections, the Republican National Committee doubled down on its antiabortion stance, formally urging Republican lawmakers and campaigns to “go on offense in the 2024 election cycle” and to pass the strictest antiabortion legislation possible.
However, conservative candidates and campaigns have been met with defeats at the polls, even in traditionally red states, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Knowles contributed to this report.
Abortion access in America Tracking abortion access in the United States: Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the legality of abortion has been left to individual states. The Washington Post is tracking states where abortion is legal, banned or under threat.
Abortion pills: The Supreme Court will decide this term whether to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Oral arguments are likely to be scheduled for the spring, with a decision by the end of June. For now, full access to mifepristone will remain in place.
Battles over access: Abortion access remains divisive politically and legally. In December, a pregnant woman in Texas lost her legal battle for permission to end her pregnancy. A Kentucky woman went to court asserting the state’s abortion restrictions violate her constitutional right to privacy.
Post-Roe America: With Roe overturned, women who had secret abortions before Roe v. Wade felt compelled to speak out. Other women who were seeking abortions while living in states with strict abortion bans also shared their experiences with The Post through calls, text messages and other documentation. Here are photos and stories from across America since the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
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