Ms. Herrera Beutler’s parents, a white mother and a Mexican-American father, made politics a part of their lives from the start.
They raised her with her two siblings and three cousins in southwest Washington and taught Mrs. Herrera Beutler up to the ninth grade, partly to keep her close to her Christian faith. As part of the curriculum, children were required to go to the state capitol each year and march for candidates in local parades.
When she was a teenager, she knew she wanted to get into politics.
She graduated from the University of Washington in 2004 and served as Legal Counsel to Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. In six years she had been elected to Congress herself, a spike dubbed meteoric in the local news media. When Ms. Herrera Beutler was first elected in 2010, along with a number of other Republican women, she was 31 years old and she was the first Spanish person to represent Washington in Congress.
Before her strong stance on Mr Trump this year, Ms. Herrera Beutler’s biggest moment on national news media came in 2013 when she announced that the baby she was expecting would be first diagnosed with Potter Syndrome – a rare one – and to This is a fatal condition that can develop during pregnancy if there is insufficient amniotic fluid in the uterus.
The day she was diagnosed, including an anatomy scan that showed the baby had no kidneys, was “the worst 24 hours of my life,” recalled Herrera Beutler, adding that she was “like a grave “Felt. She went public to share the burden and find treatment, and deliberately gave interviews for outlets like People Magazine in hopes of reaching the broadest and most apolitical audience possible.
Ms. Herrera Beutler received replies from parents around the world and found a doctor at Johns Hopkins University who injected saline into her amniotic fluid cavity. It worked. Abigail, named after Abigail Adams, was born at 29 weeks of age, spent months in the neonatal intensive care unit, and then received dialysis for two years before receiving a kidney transplant from her father, Daniel Beutler.
