Texas first lady Anita Perry told an interviewer on Saturday that she thinks abortion is “a woman’s right.”
Perry’s husband, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), has helped push through a slew of laws restricting and eroding access to abortion in the state. He is on record deriding the idea that the right to privacy extends to abortion, has signed a pledge urging opposition to abortion “without exception and without compromise,” and explicitly stated that his goal is to make abortion in Texas “a thing of the past.”
Apparently, his wife does not agree. When asked at an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival if she thinks the governor’s administration “got it right” on abortion policy, Anita Perry immediately responded, “Well, that’s really difficult for me.” And while she clearly expressed personal opposition to abortion, she twice referred to that choice as “a woman’s right.”
INTERVIEWER: Your view is: governor’s got it right, the administration has it right.
ANITA PERRY: Well, that’s really difficult for me Evan because I see it as a woman’s right. If they want to do that, that is their decision. They have to live with that decision.
INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Perry I want to be sure that you didn’t just inadvertently make news. Are you saying that you believe that abortion is a woman’s right — to make that choice?
PERRY: It is not mine. It is not something that I would say for them.
INTERVIEWER: Do you believe that the state is attempting to say for them? And that if the governor and the administration had its way it would say for women that it is not their right?
PERRY: I think it goes back to the states and Texas has decided that no that is not what we want in the state.
INTERVIEWER: But your personal point of view is that it’s a person’s decision within the law to make that choice?
PERRY: Well I don’t really think that’s making news. I mean, I think that yeah, that could be a woman’s right. Just like it’s a man’s right if he wants to have some kind of procedure.
Watch it:
