Texas Republican Says He’d Make Hypothetical Daughter Carry Rape-Induced Pregnancy

In September 2021, Texas became the first state in the country to enact a near-total abortion ban at six weeks—and without a rape exception. At the time, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) suggested a rape exception wasn’t necessary because he would simply “eliminate rape” by aggressively investing in law enforcement. This week, a different Texas Republican has managed to say something similarly insane and offensive. 

Speaking to Texas Public Radio on Thursday, state Rep. John Lujan (R) attempted to justify his support for Texas’s abortion ban and its lack of exceptions. Lujan invented a hypothetical daughter, and proudly said he would force her to carry a rape-induced pregnancy to term: “I think if it was my daughter—I don’t have any daughters—but if I had a daughter, and it would have been a rape, I think we, I would say no, we’re going to have the baby.”

Lujan is, unsurprisingly, universally endorsed by top anti-abortion organizations. In 2023, he joined dozens of other Republicans in the state legislature to present an amicus brief defending the abortion ban as part of a lawsuit brought by over a dozen Texas women who say the abortion law almost killed them.

His comments are the latest in a long canon of Republican lawmakers—especially on the state level—making inexplicably gross comments about abortion and rape. In 2023, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick blamed the state abortion ban’s lack of a rape exception on the Democratic Party from 100 years ago: “Our original law that’s on the books now was written by Democrats—all Democrats,” Patrick said. “We had few Republicans back then, few Republicans in the state. They did not put in an exception for rape or incest when they passed that law.” (Of course, Texas Republicans today have zero interest in adding one.) A Michigan Republican candidate said in 2022 that he once told his daughters, “If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.” An Ohio Republican in the state legislature called pregnancy from rape “an opportunity,” while a Utah lawmaker suggested rape-induced pregnancies don’t actually happen because women can “control that intake of semen.”

A study released earlier this year estimated that 64,565 rape-induced pregnancies had occurred in abortion-banned states since the 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health—58,979 (91%) in states with no rape exception and 26,313 (45%) in Texas alone.

Lujan is running for reelection in what’s widely seen as the Texas state House’s only competitive race. The 118th state House district was a reliably Democratic seat until redistricting in 2020. Lujan first won the seat in a special election in 2021 and won reelection in 2022, though exit polls in 2020 showed Joe Biden winning the district. 

By contrast, Lujan’s Democratic challenger Kristian Carranza—a former regional director for the Democratic National Committee—is running on abortion rights. “Texas women are dying, fleeing the state and being forced to carry rape and incest related pregnancies because of extreme politicians like John Lujan,” Carranza said in a statement responding to Lujan’s remarks. “This glimpse into Lujan’s lack of awareness into this nightmare facing everyday Texans is exactly why we’re going to defeat him in November.”

Last week an analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute a found that maternal deaths in the state increased by a 56% from 2019 to 2022—that is, after Texas’ six-week abortion ban took effect in 2021. According to the organization that published this data, “There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality. All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban as the primary driver.”