AUSTIN — Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico used his Christian faith to defend abortion rights during a podcast interview published Monday. He argued that his religious beliefs support access to abortion and oppose government intervention in reproductive decisions.

"I don’t believe it’s a place for politicians. I don’t believe it’s a place for the state," Talarico said. "And that’s a belief I hold not despite my faith, but because of my faith. Jesus never talks about abortion. The Bible is silent on abortion. And when that happens with a social issue as important as abortion, we Christians have to take scripture as a whole. And we’ve got to try to make some kind of ethical determination."

He criticized Texas’s current abortion law as the most extreme in the country, highlighting its lack of exceptions for rape or incest. "Right now in Texas, we have the most extreme abortion ban in the country. No exception for rape. No exception for incest. We have girls as young as 10 years old who are assaulted, who are raped, who are victims of incest, and who can’t access basic reproductive care, who aren’t able to make the decision about whether or not they are going to create," he said.

Talarico was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2018 at age 29. In 2021, during a speech on the House floor opposing a bill to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, he stated, "God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. Trans children are God’s children, made in God’s own image." He has also said, "The point is that biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum, and oftentimes can be very ambiguous."

Talarico is seeking the U.S. Senate seat in 2026, aiming to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas in decades. No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race in the state since 1988. Polling shows hypothetical tight matchups between Talarico and Republican candidates John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, who are in a runoff to determine the GOP nominee. The outcome of the 2026 Texas Senate race could play a pivotal role in determining control of the U.S. Senate.