Texas Republican tries to school teen over abortion ban tweet – and fails

A Texas teenager schooled a Republican congressional candidate over the state’s controversial abortion ban in one of the most satisfying Twitter exchanges we’ve seen in a while.

It all started when Olivia Julianna, 18, sent a tweet pointing out that Texas Governor Greg Abbott should be less worried about women’s uteruses, and more concerned about the power grid.

She tweeted: “If only Greg Abbott spent as much time regulating the energy grid as he does regulating my uterus.”

Texas’ power grid failed in February after winter storms struck the Lone Star State, leading to a crisis where more than four million people lost power.

Republican congressional candidate Samuel Williams hit back by quote tweeting Julianna and calling her a “uniformed liberal”. We can only assume he meant to write “uninformed”.

He said: “Here we go again an uniformed liberal that would murder a child. Blaming Greg Abbott for something he has no control over. She doesn’t seem to understand that the power grid is owned and operated by private companies.”

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Williams, a veteran, hopes to represent Texas’ 16th Congressional District after the elections in November 2022.

Julianna clapped back just a few minutes later to correct his point on who manages the power grid by telling him it’s not just overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), but also by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, whose commissioners and board are appointed by the governor. 

She added: “Worry about your research, not about my uterus.”

People tweeted messages to support to Julianna, with one person remarking: “You just experienced some elite level mansplaining. Well done for blasting that meatball into the cheap seats.”

Julianna posted about the encounter to TikTok and quickly garnered almost 200,000 views and 47,000 likes.

Her video received over 1,200 comments, with one user writing: “I WISH I could like this 582917489 times.”

Another asked: “Privately owned grid?! What about a privately owned UTERUS?!!?”

Others joked about Williams’ spelling: “UNIFORMED!?? PLEAAASSEEE.”

In a follow-up video posted today, Julianna said she wanted to highlight that, when it comes to discussing the new abortion legislation in Texas, a lot of people don’t realise who it will disproportionately affect – people of colour.

Those from low-income backgrounds who don’t have the resources to travel to obtain an abortion will also bear the brunt of the new law, she said.

In a statement, Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said the new law is a “travesty” for nearly seven million women of reproductive age.

McGill Johnson said: “The impact of this heinous abortion ban cannot be understated, overwhelmingly harming Black and Latinx people, people with low incomes, and people in rural areas, who already face immense barriers to health care access. This is the loudest alarm yet that abortion rights are in grave danger, in Texas and across the country.”

For everything you need to know about the new abortion law in Texas, check out indy100’s explainer.