Democrats see access to abortion, IVF as keys to defeating Sen. Ted Cruz

WASHINGTON — In his quest to defeat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Democrat Colin Allred is banking on abortion — and the lack of access in Texas — as a top issue that will motivate voters in the November election.

Allred, a U.S. representative from Dallas, says Cruz’s support for the state’s “cruel abortion ban” is putting women’s health in danger.

“The only way in Texas we’re going to restore this right is at the federal level by beating Ted Cruz,” Allred said during an appearance on MSNBC. “When I’m in the United States Senate, we will codify Roe v. Wade. We’ll go back to the standard we had for the last 50 years.”

Cruz, a Republican senator for Texas since 2013, says the public overwhelmingly supports at least some limits on abortion access, including parental notification requirements for minors. He says federal legislation pushed by Democrats would prohibit states like Texas from adopting such restrictions.

“The position of today’s elected Democrats in Congress on abortion is wildly out of step with the American people,” Cruz said at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill. “It is a radical proposition.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the constitutional right to abortion when it overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022, Democrats have ridden the issue to election victories in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia and other states.

Texas Democrats hope for similar results in a state that has not elected a statewide Democrat since the 1990s.

To drive the point home, Allred gave his guest ticket to last month’s State of the Union to Austin Dennard, a Dallas obstetrician/gynecologist who had to travel out of state for an abortion after learning her fetus had a severe, lethal birth defect.

Dennard delivered emotional testimony two weeks later before the Senate Judiciary Committee, describing her humiliation at having to leave the state for a necessary abortion and the fear she sees in her patients.

“We collectively hold our breath as we pass the pregnancy milestones, because my patients know that lawmakers have stripped away their rights to make decisions about their own health, their own body and their own family,” Dennard said.

“So long as they remain on Texas soil, their pregnancies belong to the state,” she said.

Cruz, a member of the committee, did not use his allotted time to question Dennard or other witnesses, but spoke about the country’s deep divisions over abortion and how the issue should be resolved by voters rather than the Supreme Court.

In an interview after the hearing, Cruz expressed sympathy for women such as Dennard and Kate Cox, who unsuccessfully sued Texas for permission to end a pregnancy after receiving a lethal fetal diagnosis.

“Any time a mom wants to have a child and tragically faces a medical emergency and is not able to, that is heartbreaking,” Cruz said.

He praised the Texas Supreme Court ruling in Cox’s case, in which justices suggested the state medical board should define what constitutes a medical emergency so doctors have a better idea when an abortion would be allowed.

“That is an important task and I have confidence that the Texas state Legislature and the Texas state Medical Board will lay out the precise contours of the medical definitions of a medical emergency,” Cruz said.

A couple days after those comments, the board released proposed rules that named one qualifying exception — ectopic pregnancies — but largely focused on the role of physician discretion.

The proposal is in the midst of a 30-day public comment period.

Abortion and IVF

Before the Supreme Court struck down Roe, Cruz had supported a national ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation.

Since then, Cruz has said federal legislation could be appropriate but noted that the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation means only abortion-related bills with broad support would be likely to pass.

That, Cruz said, leaves each state free to set the rules on abortion according to the values of its citizens.

“We would expect the people of Texas to adopt different rules than the people of California,” he said. “That is perfectly OK, and that is the beauty of our federalist system that welcomes diversity.”

During a recent appearance on The Daily Show, Allred described the situation in Texas as a tragedy, with assault victims being forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies and others being denied necessary care.

Allred and his wife have had two sons in the past few years.

“I went to every ultrasound appointment, every genetic testing,” Allred said. “Those rooms, when you’re having those conversations with your doctor, they’re too small to have somebody like Ted Cruz in there with you.”

He said the solution is restoring Roe’s protections through federal legislation.

Democrats have offered a bill, which Allred has supported, that would bar prohibitions on abortion before fetal viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the uterus, generally at 23 to 24 weeks gestation.

It also would protect post-viability abortion when “in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

Democrats describe that proposal as a way to restore Roe’s protections, but Cruz and other Republicans say the bill was written so expansively, it would effectively wipe out all state-level restrictions on abortion.

Protecting access to in-vitro fertilization also has become an issue since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos created through the IVF process are legally children and people can be held liable for their destruction.

The ruling, coupled with efforts by some Republicans to define human life as beginning at conception, raised fears that access would be cut off to IVF, which can include the destruction of embryos as part of the process.

Senate Democrats requested unanimous consent to act on a bill protecting IVF, but U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., objected to the legislation as a “vast overreach.”

Allred criticized the roadblock to the IVF bill and used the occasion to criticize Cruz’s “dangerous record” for jeopardizing the rights of Texans who see IVF as essential to starting a family.

Cruz has said repeatedly that he and every other U.S. senator supports IVF and called Democratic efforts political misdirection.

“They want to focus on an issue that is very popular with the American people because they don’t want to defend their actual positions on abortion, which are wildly unpopular with the American people,” Cruz said.

Disagreement over abortion drugs

The use of abortion pills has risen sharply since Roe was overturned and some states adopted strict limits or outright bans on the procedure, including Texas, which allows abortion only when the mother is at risk of death or serious injury, and there are no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

The percentage of medication abortions in the United States has been climbing for years, topping 50% in 2020. The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to federal rules that eased access to abortion pills and allowed them to be sent through the mail.

Cruz and Allred signed onto opposing legal briefs submitted by members of Congress in the case. Democrats have backed the FDA rules easing access, while Republicans such as Cruz raised objections to the agency’s actions.

The Republican brief argues the FDA exceeded its authority by removing requirements for in-person visits to a doctor before the pills could be prescribed.

“As pro-life elected representatives, [we] are committed to protecting women and adolescent girls from the harms of the abortion industry,” they wrote. “By deregulating chemical abortion drugs, the FDA failed to follow Congress’ statutorily prescribed drug approval process to the detriment of patient welfare. The FDA’s lawless actions ultimately have endangered women and girls seeking chemical abortions.”

The brief Allred signed onto said rolling back FDA approval would exacerbate difficulties by limiting the most common method of early abortion.

Strict abortion limits have created a public health crisis as women have been denied access to abortion and doctors have denied emergency care out of fear they would be prosecuted for violating state laws, the brief said.

“No other practice of medicine bears witness to these types of denials of care based on state restrictions and ideological interference,” the Democrats wrote.

Potent state and federal issue

Former President Donald Trump recently said he believes abortion limits should be left to the states and downplayed the prospect of a national abortion ban.

Those comments put him at odds with some Republicans who hope to adopt national restrictions on abortions after a certain number of weeks of pregnancy.

Trump’s statement also was panned by Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who expressed deep disappointment in Trump’s position.

“Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry,” Dannenfelser said.

Cruz was asked last week if he agreed with Trump’s views on abortion.

“I have long said that under the Constitution abortion should be decided by the voters and by the states,” he told reporters.

Polling in Texas indicates up to half of voters believe Texas abortion laws should be made less strict. Expect to see a barrage of election advertising from Democrats on the topic of abortion.

National Democrats see similar opportunities.

Amanda Zurawski is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Texas’ abortion exemptions for medically complicated pregnancies. Zurawski developed a life-threatening infection when doctors delayed an abortion even though her fetus was not expected to survive.

President Joe Biden’s campaign released a new ad last week featuring Zurawski in which she cries about losing the baby she’d planned to name Willow and describes the infection that almost killed her.

Blaming Trump for appointing Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe, the ad ends with the words: “Donald Trump did this.”

In a video statement posted on his Truth Social website last week, Trump said he was “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe. He said Republicans support IVF and that abortion law should be determined by the states.

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be,” Trump said in the video. “At the end of the day this is all about the will of the people.”