- Republican Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted Saturday that smoking is a person's "own damn choice."
- Twitter pointed out Cruz's hypocrisy, noting that he is against choice when it comes to abortion.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has been accused of hypocrisy for saying that smoking is a person's "own damn choice" while celebrating abortion restrictions.
In a tweet, responding to an article about how New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is weighing a complete ban on the sale of tobacco products in the state, Cruz called Democrats "nanny-state authoritarians." Hochul is a Democrat.
"Personally, I don't smoke cigarettes, but if you choose to do so, it's your damn choice!" he tweeted on Saturday.
—Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 22, 2023
His comments immediately drew backlash on social media, with several people pointing out that he is against personal choice when it comes to abortion.
Zac Petkanas, a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, tweeted: "Aren't you guys pushing a national abortion ban? Might want to sit this one out."
"Now do uteruses," Brian Taylor Cohen, a political commentator who hosts the "No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen" podcast, responded to the tweet.
Author Ellen Hopkins also chimed in, tweeting that Cruz's "projection is off the charts."
"This is rich," she tweeted. "Y'all Repubs are telling us what we can read; do with our bodies; who we can love; that our kids have to have bible stories in their classrooms, but history must be whitewashed.... nanny-state authoritarians?"
A spokesperson for Cruz did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The senator is strongly anti-abortion and has previously supported cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
In 2016, Cruz said all cases of abortion should be illegal, including situations of rape and incest.
"When it comes to rape, rape is a horrific crime against the humanity of a person, and needs to be punished and punished severely," he said at the time, according to MSNBC. "But at the same time, as horrible as that crime is, I don't believe it's the child's fault."
After the opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked last year, the senator compared protesters demonstrating outside the homes of Supreme Court justices to rioters at the Capitol insurrection.