While hospitals across the nation try to help people stay alive amid the coronavirus outbreak, an Austin city councilman is instead focused on killing unborn children.
Rewind to last week, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott enacted a statewide executive order banning all nonessential medical procedures, in an attempt to preserve as much hospital resources and capacity as possible toward treating Chinese coronavirus patients.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton followed up by announcing abortion providers could not kill babies during the order, as that practice was classified as a nonessential medical procedure.
However, Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit challenging the order, arguing that killing children is “essential healthcare.”
“Abortion providers who refuse to follow state law are demonstrating a clear disregard for Texans suffering from this medical crisis,” the Texas Attorney General tweeted. “For years, abortion has been touted as a ‘choice’ by the same groups now attempting to claim it is an essential procedure.”
This week, an Austin judge sided with Planned Parenthood to allow them to continue the practice. But yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the district court’s ruling, leaving Abbott’s order still in place and children’s lives protected for now.
The whole situation sparked Austin City Councilman Greg Casar, a self-proclaimed socialist, to call Gov. Abbott’s protection for babies “disgusting.”
“This is disgusting and we are not going to let it stand,” Casar tweeted after the governor’s initial order. “[Gov. Abbott] could work on reducing the spread of #COVID—19, instead he’s focused on showing off how cruel and right-wing he is.”
Casar tweeted again after the district judge’s ruling, applauding the fact that abortion providers would still be allowed to kill babies.
“[Gov. Abbott] & [Ken Paxton] tried to cancel almost all abortions in our state as part of a cruel political stunt during #COVID19. Our fearless TX abortion access movement beat them back today!” Casar tweeted after the Austin judge’s ruling.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Casar has not tweeted again about the matter since the appellate court upheld Abbott’s protection for children.
Ironically, in the same day as Casar’s latest abortion post, he also tweeted about how Austinites are “acting in incredible solidarity to save lives” during the virus, and criticized Gov. Abbott for “endangering the lives of people who work in our jails” amid the disease.
Numerous citizens reacted to Casar’s posts.
“So….we must kill babies to help save lives of COVID-19 patients?” one replied.
“Wow in a matter of a few hours U tweet support for releasing criminals 2 keep them from ‘dying’ in jail although I haven’t seen that anyone in jail has died due to virus & celebrate the continued practice of aborting unborn babies,” another commented.
“In times like this who’s thinking about killing innocent lives?” another added.
While Abbott’s order could face further challenges, plaintiffs argue it has already saved hundreds of children from being killed in the Lone Star State. Currently, Texas’ coronavirus-related deaths number 60.
