Lina Hidalgo criticizes Texas’ abortion ban after study estimates thousands of rape-related pregnancies

“One of the Houston area’s top elected officials criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders after a recent study published in a peer-reviewed medical journal estimated that more than 26,000 Texas women became pregnant by rape after abortion was banned in the state, which offers no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined rape-related pregnancies in the 14 U.S. states that have implemented total abortion bans since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973. Texas was estimated to have the most rape-related pregnancies among those states, accounting for about 40% of the total.

“When the Texas legislature passed its abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, Governor Abbott vowed to ‘eliminate all rapists from the streets,'” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Thursday night in a statement released by her office. “What our state leaders have done instead is create a public health emergency in communities across Texas, including Harris County.”…”