Texas GOP proposes potential death penalty for women who get abortions

The Texas GOP is considering a platform that appears to call for women who get abortions to face the death penalty.

Republican Party of Texas delegates voted on the platform on Saturday and tallies are expected this week, The Texas Tribune reported.

One of the proposed planks in the 50-page platform calls for legislation to secure “equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization.”

“Equal Protection for the Preborn: 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,” the plank says.

And under a section titled “Pro-Life Issues,” the platform also includes a proclamation that “abortion is not health care it is homicide.”

In Texas, capital murder is punishable by the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The category applies to cases with aggravating factors, such as for multiple murders or for the murder of an individuals under the age of six.

Newsweek has contacted the Republic Party of Texas for comment via its website.

Jessica Valenti, a feminist writer, noted in her Substack newsletter, Abortion, Every Day, that “equal protection” is “a call for abortion to be treated as homicide, and for abortion patients to be prosecuted as murderers.”

Valenti noted that lawmakers in both South Carolina and Georgia recently sought to pass legislation called the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, which aimed to make abortion punishable as murder under the states’ criminal codes.

The Biden campaign blamed former President Donald Trump for the Texas GOP’s “cruel agenda.”

“Donald Trump has repeatedly said he supports extreme MAGA state laws that monitor women’s pregnancies and control their health care decisions—now the Texas GOP, which endorsed Donald Trump, has opened the door for the death penalty for abortion patients as part of its official 2024 platform,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.

“Let’s be clear: their cruel agenda wouldn’t be possible without Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade. And like every extreme ban across the country ripping away women’s freedom, Donald Trump owns this.”

Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at Lawyering for Reproductive Justice: If/When/How, told HuffPost: “I wish I could say that the idea of the death penalty is a jump, but it’s not.”

For the anti-abortion movement in Texas, “it’s actually the next logical step,” Diaz-Tello said.

“The state of Texas is a leader in controlling people with their penal system. If a fetus is considered a person, then it’s considered a child, which is a vulnerable population. … Homicide of identified vulnerable persons escalates penalties.”

The platform also called for new laws to require Christianity and the Bible to be taught in public schools and proclaimed that gender-affirming care for children is “child abuse.”

“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,” Valenti wrote.

“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.”

Update 05/30/24, 10:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from a Biden campaign spokesperson.