Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has slammed Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s recent comments defending his state's new abortion law.
AOC, the representative for New York's 14th congressional district, described Abbott's defense as "disgusting" and "deeply ignorant", following the governor's recent comments regarding rape victims.
Per the Huffington Post, Abbott was asked by a reporter on Tuesday: "Why force a rape or incest victim to carry a pregnancy to term?"
In response, Abbott said: "It doesn't require that at all, because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion [...] That said, however, let's make something very clear; rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.
"So goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person, will be a victim of rape."
AOC was later asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night what her thoughts were on Abbott's comments, to which she said that the Texas Governor was "not familiar with a female or menstruating person’s body" because if he was "he would know that you don’t have six weeks".
You can watch AOC's damning response in the video below:The 31-year-old continued: "I’m sorry we have to break down biology 101 on national television, but in case no one has informed him before in his life, six weeks pregnant means two weeks late for your period.
"And two weeks late on your period for any person, any person with a menstrual cycle, can happen if you’re stressed, if your diet changes, or for really no reason at all. So, you don’t have six weeks."
Ocasio-Cortez then dismissed Abbott's comments regarding "getting rapists off the streets".
"The majority of people who are raped and who are sexually assaulted are assaulted by someone that they know," she said. "These aren’t just predators that are walking around the streets at night. They are people's uncles. They are teachers. They are family friends.
"And when something like that happens it takes a very long time, first of all, for any victim to come forward."
AOC then spoke about how some victims don't want to bring their cases "into the carceral system" and that some people "don't want to retraumatize themselves by going to court".
"He speaks from such a place of deep ignorance," AOC said of Abbott, before adding: "And it’s not just ignorance. It’s ignorance that’s hurting people across this country."
Last week, Texas passed a new law - known as Senate Bill 8 - that bans abortion providers from carrying out terminations after the fetus' heartbeat had been detected.
Per CNN, this is usually around the six-week mark - a time when many women are unaware that they are pregnant.
The law cites no exception for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest. The only exception to the law is if a "physician believes that a medical emergency exists".