Anita Perry, wife of deeply anti-choice Texas governor Rick, seemed to go a little off message on Saturday at the Texas Tribune Festival, where she told reporter Evan Smith she “sees [abortion] as a woman’s right” while answering a question about the limits her state has imposed on the procedure. “If they want to do that, that is their decision; they have to live with that decision,” she explained. A surprised-sounding Smith gave Perry a chance to backtrack by pointing out that she may have “inadvertently made news” and asking, “Are you saying that you believe abortion is a woman’s right, to make that choice?”
Perry then returned to the party line by saying that abortion policy “goes back to the states, and Texas has decided that, ‘No, that’s not what we want in the state.’” But when Smith pressed her about her “personal point of view,” she said, “I don’t really think that’s making news. I mean, 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. But I don’t agree with it and it’s not my view.” She went on to say that she wasn’t “going to criticize” Rick Perry nemesis and probable Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who answered questions from Smith at the same festival today. It’s too bad they missed each other.
