California Gov. Continues Pro-Abortion Campaign In Texas With Billboard
It’s been reported as the next phase of California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s re-election campaign, but feels more like another episode in his ongoing effort to insert himself in national politics — particularly in certain red states — snd position himself for a higher office, such as the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
Newsom has put up a billboard in Austin, Texas, promoting his state’s less-fettered access to abortion.
Placed south of Stassney Lane in South Austin, the billboard features a woman sitting with her arms crossed over her knees, her eyes directed toward a pro-abortion message that reads, “Need an abortion? California is ready to help.” The advertisement includes California’s abortion resources website and a Bible verse, Mark 12:31: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commitment than these.”
Similar Newsom-funded billboards have been raised in other Republican-led states with abortion restrictions, including Mississippi, Oklahoma and Indiana
The billboard represents the latest in Newsom’s messaging campaign in Texas pushing the Golden State’s far more liberal abortion policies. In July, the governor place in three Texas newspapers ads that criticized Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for his stances on abortion and guns.
The newspaper ads featured a modified quote from Abbott about Senate Bill 8 — which prohibits abortion in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy — to ridicule the Republican’s answer to gun violence in Texas, after the Uvalde school shooting on May 24 that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
The mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 18-year-old Salvador Ramos fatally shot the students and teachers and wounded 17 others. He fired shots for approximately five minutes outside the school before he entered the school with an AR-15 style rifle through an unlocked side entrance door.
Ramos then shut himself inside two adjoining classrooms, without locking the classroom door, killed the victims. He remained in the school for more than an hour before members of the U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit fatally shot him. The shooting was the deadliest in Texas and third-deadliest school shooting in the United States, after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
The quote from Abbott reads, “Our creator endowed us with the right to life. And yet… children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives.” The ad then shows “abortion” crossed out with “gun violence” written above it, and “Texas” crossed out with “California” written above it. Finally, Abbott’s name is crossed out with Newsom’s name written underneath.
Effective since August, Texas’ abortion law makes performing an abortion procedure a felony except in cases to save the life of a mother. The Lone Star State’s law criminalizes performing an abortion from the moment of fertilization unless the woman is facing a “life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy.”
The law was enacted soon after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing states to establish their own laws governing abortion.
Violations of the law are punishable by prison sentences up to life. The state’s attorney general is directed in such cases to seek a civil penalty of at least $100,000, plus attorney’s fees, according to the statute.
The measure states that a woman who receives an abortion will not be prosecuted.
