Rick Perry presidential campaign, 2016/Abortion

	; ; Former presidential candidate; Rick Perry
	Political offices: ; Governor of Texas; (2000-2015); Lieutenant Governor of Texas; (1998-2000); Texas Agriculture Commissioner; (1990 - 1998); Texas House of Representatives; (1984-1990)
	Perry on the issues:
	Taxes • Government regulations • International trade • Budgets • Agricultural subsidies • Federal assistance programs • Foreign affairs • Federalism • Natural resources • Healthcare • Immigration • Education • Abortion • Gay rights • Civil liberties
	Republican candidate:
	Donald Trump
	Ballotpedia's presidential election coverage; 2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016

Rick Perry announced his presidential run on June 4, 2015.^[1]

This page was current as of the 2016 election.

In July 2013, Rick Perry signed into law banning abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy and increasing the medical operating standards at abortion clinics in Texas. According to the New York Times, only five of the state's 42 abortion clinics met those standards.^[2]

In December 2011, Perry stated he no longer supported access to abortions in cases of rape and incest, attributing this "transformation" to the film Gift of Life. Perry said he still believes an exception should be where the pregnant woman's life is in danger.^[3]

During his State of the State address in 2011, Perry said, "We need to protect the unborn by fast-tracking the sonogram bill, so that women are fully, medically informed before they make the life-changing decision to terminate a pregnancy." After making it an emergency measure, Perry signed such a bill a few months later requiring pregnant woman receive a sonogram image and sound recording of the fetus before she is permitted to have an abortion. The law also forces doctors to describe the size of the fetus's limbs and organs regardless if the pregnant woman does not want to know.^[4]

Perry criticized the legal construction of a "right to privacy" that underscores abortion rights in his 2010 book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington. Perry wrote, "[T]he Court found that this 'right to privacy' extends to the right of a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy – a rather tepid euphemism for ending the life of the unborn baby. The decision and its basis in this fictitious right were, while narrowed in at least some respects, upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1995. In what can only be described as an arrogant commitment to itself – an ode to its own legitimacy, if you will – the Court actually touted its self-given 'authority to decide [the people's] constitutional cases and speak before all others for their constitutional ideals.' I assume the Court would like us to say thank you, but I also assume that the 52 million or so unborn children who never had a shot at the American dream may beg to differ."^[5]

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