Texas Rep. John Lujan of San Antonio faced heavy criticism after saying that if he had a daughter, he would force her to give birth even if she had been raped.
Lujan’s comment was during an interview with Texas Public Radio on Thursday, when host David Martin Davies asked him what he thought about Texas’ abortion ban.
“As a Christian man, I’m very pro-life,” Lujan said. “But man, I struggled with the rape and incest because, you know, I think if it was my daughter – I don’t have any daughters — but if I had a daughter, and that would have been, you know, if it would have been a rape, I think we, as a personally, I would say, ‘No, we’re going to have the baby.”
After the comments, Lujan, a Republican, faced heavy criticism from his Democratic challenger Kristian Carranza.
“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 statement. “This glimpse into Lujan’s lack of awareness of this nightmare facing everyday Texans is exactly why we’re going to defeat him in November.”
The strict Texas abortion ban only contains exceptions for pregnancies that endangers the life of the pregnant person. Currently, there are no exceptions for rape or incest, despite 80% of Texans supporting the measure in those cases, according to the San Anonio Express-News.
After Lujan’s comment made headlines, his campaign consultant Craig Murphy clarified that Lujan was speaking only of his personal beliefs and that he was not endorsing the position as state law. He also said the representative supports exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the life of the pregnant woman.
Currently, the race for Lujan’s District 118 is considered competitive. The district was Democrat but it was flipped in a 2021 special election. In 2022 Lujan won against his Democratic challenger by 3 percentage points.
