Ted Cruz Joins Fellow Republicans in Dodging Any Questions About Abortion

It’s a universally known truth that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doesn’t exactly face things head-on—he’s either fleeing a winter storm in his state for Cancun or, more recently, dodging questions from Texas media about abortion. Last week, according to the San Antonio Express-News, Cruz “declined multiple requests to answer questions about his stances” on abortion or “how he would approach the issue if he wins another six-year term in the Senate.” Cruz once introduced a federal 20-week abortion ban, so among the outlet’s questions was an attempt to clarify whether he currently supports a federal ban.

These are hardly “gotcha” questions from the liberal media—the Express-News is giving Cruz the opportunity to state his position as it comes under important scrutiny from his Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), who Cruz leads by just three points according to recent polling. Allred has specifically gone after Cruz’s record on abortion, calling the senator “extreme” as pregnant people in Texas share horrific stories about nearly dying from being denied urgent abortion care due to the state’s ban, which threatens doctors with life in prison. In 2023, women in Texas filed a landmark lawsuit challenging its stated exception for threats to the pregnant person’s life, with some saying delays in receiving emergency abortions seriously jeopardized their fertility or nearly killed them. In December, Cruz similarly avoided Texas media, ducking questions about the case of Kate Cox, a woman with a nonviable, dangerous pregnancy who was denied an abortion in her state.

According to the Express-News, Cruz “declined to say whether he supports exceptions in cases of severe fetal abnormality” and “whether he would support a federal abortion ban.” Since he won’t clearly state his current opinion on abortion bans, we can only look to what he’s said in the past: In 2016, Cruz said he opposes rape exceptions in abortion bans, telling Megyn Kelly that “as horrible as that crime is, I don’t believe it’s the child’s fault,” also adding that he doesn’t believe “it makes sense to blame the child.” In 2021, Cruz joined Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to introduce a federal 20-week abortion ban.

Cruz became a star of the Republican Party in no small part through repeated, out-of-pocket attacks on abortion and Planned Parenthood. In 2015, he celebrated receiving the endorsement of Operation Rescue—a deranged anti-abortion group that’s been linked with the assassination of abortion provider George Tiller in 2009. But Cruz now seems to be following former President Trump’s lead, as the Republican presidential nominee insists he’d leave abortion up to the states and attempts to distance himself from the party’s history of overt extremism on the issue. The official plan of attack from Republicans seems to be posturing as moderate on or avoiding the issue of abortion altogether. (The Republican Party platform, ratified in July, doesn’t explicitly call for a national ban but instead wields sneaky language to call for fetal personhood.) And as Trump continues to push the bogus line that Republicans will generously, kindly leave abortion up to the states, Republican candidates up and down the ballot are either falling in line or, like Cruz, trying to duck abortion altogether.

At a press conference last week, Trump baselessly claimed “abortion has become much less of an issue” and is “actually going to be a very small issue” this election cycle. Pretty much every poll readily disproves this. And as the adage goes, silence speaks volumes. It’s telling that, ahead of a crucial election, Cruz and anti-abortion lawmakers are unwilling to stand on or even clarify their records on abortion.