The fight waged by a group of Republican women at the Texas Republican Convention highlights the deep divisions on abortion within the GOP.
By Caroline Kitchener, The Washington PostGilda Bayegan, center, and Michelle Bouchard, right, talk with Bouchard’s boyfriend, at his home in Houston on June 19.
tree-lined neighborhoods for the fluorescent lights of a San Antonio convention center, all in pursuit of the same goal: Persuade the Texas Republican Party to stop talking about abortion. “I’m up here begging you not to make it one of our priorities,” Bayegan said, wearing a giant homemade button that read “Win or Else!” The vast majority of voters wanted the party to prioritize increased border security and cracking down on crime, she added — not stricter abortion laws.
When the state’s thousands of delegates voted on the platform later that weekend, Bayegan had to believe they would see things differently.Michelle Bouchard fixes her hair at her boyfriend’s home in Houston. months earlier at a conference center in Houston’s Senate District 15when another Republican state delegate from Harris County, Michelle Bouchard, realized her neighbors may choose to support“Woah, hold up.
six weeks ahead of the state convention. With a subtle side-eye to the “Right to Life” movement, Bayegan came up with the name “Right to Win.” a “pig with hair,” they both thought Trump was the best man for the job and planned to vote for him in November. In San Antonio, six Right-to-Win members took turns addressing the key policy committee, which would make recommendations to delegates for which issues to prioritize, explaining their view that abortion should not be anywhere near the top of the list.
“We arrived with about a hundred supporters and left with over four hundred!” Bouchard wrote in an email to the group. Republican lawmakers would no longer feel the pressure of the party platform when voting on abortion restrictions. They would be free to focus on other things. “Those who unapologetically oppose the foundational Principles of this Party … should not be permitted to weaken those Principles and should not be welcomed into the Party leadership, whether elected or appointed, at any level,” read the document signed by 50
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