(NEW YORK) — Chris Christie has become the first Republican presidential candidate to take an unequivocal stance on the headline-making case of Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was denied an abortion by the state Supreme Court ruling after she learned of her fetus’ fatal diagnosis.
Christie, a former New Jersey governor, said Wednesday night that the high court “got it wrong.”
“Now, look, I’m pro-life and I believe that we should try to save every life that we can, because I believe every life is a precious gift from God, but there was no saving this life,” Christie told a packed town hall in New Hampshire, opening his remarks to the crowd by talking about Cox’s case.
A lower court originally had allowed Cox a medical exemption to terminate her 20-week pregnancy after multiple emergency room visits and being informed of the non-viable condition of her fetus, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — a vocal abortion opponent — halted the authorization and passed the case to the Texas Supreme Court.
Unsure when a high court decision would come, Cox sought abortion care in another state, according to her counsel.
Other top Republicans vying for the party’s nomination have called for empathy, but have yet to directly judge the court’s decision.
“We got to approach these issues with compassion because these are very difficult issues and nobody would wish this to happen on anybody,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a CNN town hall Tuesday.
Days earlier, DeSantis admitted to not being fully read in on Cox’s story and compared the Lone Star State’s laws to Florida’s, citing the Heartbeat Protection Act’s exceptions, including “for rape, incest, life of the mother, victims of human trafficking, and then when you have these situations where you have real significant abnormality,” he said.
During a press conference Tuesday evening, GOP candidate Nikki Haley called herself “pro-life” and said, “We don’t want any women to sit there and deal with a rare situation and have to deliver a baby in that sort of circumstance any more than we want women getting an abortion at 37, 38, 39 weeks. We have to humanize the situation and deal with it with compassion.”
Earlier in the week, Haley said she disagreed that the “issue needed to be in the hands of unelected justices,” instead arguing it “needs to be in the hands of the people because it’s a personal issue for every woman and man.”
Haley did not explicitly support or oppose the Texas decision.
Former President Donald Trump has not directly commented on Cox’s case, but has in the past called state-level restrictions “terrible.”
President Joe Biden’s campaign quickly put blame on Trump, who during his term, rallied behind leaders like Paxton who staunchly oppose abortion. The president himself issued a statement condemning the high court’s decision in Cox’s case and holding Republicans responsible for the situation.
“No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs. But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican-elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period,” the statement, issued Tuesday, read.
Conversely, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy told reporters in New Hampshire Monday that issues like Kate Cox’s are for the states to address.
“What I have said is that this is an issue reserved to the States and as a U.S. presidential candidate, I’ve been crystal clear on that,” he responded after being pressed by reporters for comment on the Texas Supreme Court decision.
Ramaswamy continued, focusing on fatherhood and paternal responsibility. “We need policies that stand for our pro- life view by saying that men bear sexual responsibility for their decisions that give a woman sole option to make the man responsible for raising a child as the principal financial caretaker. So, that’s what I believe is the Republican Party’s path forward on this issue and I’d love to see other candidates embrace it,” he said.
Other than Paxton, who escalated Cox’s case and said the state would endure an “irreparable loss” should she have an abortion, top Texas officials, all Republicans who have in the past been outspokenly anti-abortion, have remained largely mum on the issue.
Neither Texas Gov. Greg Abbott nor Sen. Ted Cruz responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn’s office referred back to a previous statement in which Cornyn said: “This should not be decided by the Supreme Court. It should be decided by the states, and different states are deciding it differently … I think it will change over time as people — as elected officials try to understand where the voters are and what their wishes are on a highly sensitive and controversial topic.”
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