The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Soon]

Texas senator Wendy Davis filibusters against abortion bill

AUSTIN, TEXAS Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation's second-most populous state.

Sen. Wendy Davis, 50, of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday and passed the nine-hour mark in her countdown to midnight -- the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.

Before Davis began speaking, her chair was removed. CBSDFW.com reports that Davis must speak continuously -- and stay on topic -- the entire time. She is not allowed to lean against something for support. And she will not be able to stop or take a break, not even for meals or the restroom, during the entire 13-hour ordeal.

Davis offered some insight to her plans Monday night on Twitter:


If signed into law, the measures would close almost every abortion clinic in Texas, a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion if the law passes.

In her opening remarks, Davis said she was "rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of Texans" and called Republican efforts to pass the bill a "raw abuse of power."

Democrats chose Davis to lead the effort because of her background as a woman who had her first child as a teenager and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School.

In the hallway outside the Senate chamber, hundreds of women stood in line, waiting for people in the gallery to give up their seats. Women's rights supporters wore orange T-shirts to show their support for Davis, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst reminded those in the gallery that interrupting the proceedings could results in 48 hours in jail.

Davis tried to stay comfortable and sharp by shifting her weight from hip to hip and slowly walking around her desk while reading notes from a large binder on her desk. When a male protester stood in the Senate gallery and shouted, "Abortion is genocide," Davis continued talking uninterrupted as the man was removed by security.

Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks as she begins a filibuster in an effort to kill an abortion bill, June 25, 2013, in Austin, Texas. / AP PHOTO/ERIC GAY
If the filibuster succeeds, it could also take down other measures. A proposal to fund major transportation projects as well as a bill to have Texas more closely conform with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision banning mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole for offenders younger than 18 might not get votes. Current state law only allows a life sentence without parole for 17-year-olds convicted of capital murder.

Twice in the first six hours, anti-abortion lawmakers questioned Davis about the bill, presenting their arguments that it would protect women or that abortions were wrong. Davis answered their questions but did not give up control of the floor.

"This is really about women's health," said Sen. Bob Deuell, who introduced a requirement that all abortions take place in surgical centers. "Sometimes bad things can happen."

Davis questioned then why vasectomies and colonoscopies aren't also required to take place in such clinics. "Because I've been unable to have a simple question answered to help me understand how this would lead to better care for women, I must question the underlying motive for doing so."

Davis read testimony from women and doctors who would be impacted by the changes, but who were denied the opportunity to speak in a Republican-controlled committee. During one heart-wrenching story describing a woman's difficult pregnancy, Davis choked up several times and wiped tears.

The bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles -- a tall order in rural communities.

"If this passes, abortion would be virtually banned in the state of Texas, and many women could be forced to resort to dangerous and unsafe measures," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late former Texas governor Ann Richards.

CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reports many clinics would be forced to shut down because they wouldn't be able to afford the changes required by the law. Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman's Health, said it would cost up to $2 million for each of her clinics to be upgraded to hospital-style operating rooms.

"I'd have to knock down the wall between this room and another room, I'd have to add airflow systems, I'd have to get oxygen piped in through walls instead of tank in here," she explained in one of her centers.


Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said the Democrats never should have been allowed to put Republicans "in a box" and complained that many in the Senate GOP were "flying by the seat of their pants."

But the bill's bogging down began with Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who summoned lawmakers back to work immediately after the regular legislative session ended May 27 but didn't add abortion to the special session to-do list until late in the process. The Legislature can only take up issues at the governor's direction.

Then, House Democrats succeeded in stalling nearly all night Sunday, keeping the bill from reaching the Senate until 11 a.m. Monday.

Debate in that chamber included lawmakers waving coat-hangers on the floor and claiming the new rules are so draconian that women are going to be forced to head to Mexico to have abortions.

At one point, the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Jodie Laubenberg of Spring, errantly suggested that emergency room rape kits could be used to terminate pregnancies.



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Texas Senator Wendy Davis is standing on the Senate floor RIGHT NOW filibustering conservative attempts to pass some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

Tell Wendy you stand with her in fighting for women's health care and reproductive rights - now and in the months to come. We will send her your messages of support.

[Soon]

Sen. Wendy Davis Filibuster Live Stream: Watch The Texas Senator Try To Defeat Abortion Bill

[Kobi]

The news is reporting Wendy Davis didn't make thru all the hoops Texas required for her filibuster to hold off voting on the abortion bill.

But, now there is controversy as to when the vote was actually taken. The official record originally had the vote taken after midnight. It was then changed to before midnight.

http://news.yahoo.com/dispute-texas-...070453921.html

[DapperButch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...6pLid%3D336067

Yee Haw!

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called a second special session of the Texas Legislature to pass widespread abortion restrictions across the nation's second-largest state, after the first attempt by Republicans died overnight following a marathon one-woman filibuster.

Perry ordered lawmakers to meet again on July 1 to act on the abortion proposals, as well as separate bills that would boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. The sweeping abortion rules would close nearly all the state's abortion clinics and impose other widespread restrictions.

Perry can call as many 30-day extra sessions as he likes, but lawmakers can only take up those issues he assigns.

The debate over abortion restrictions led to the most chaotic day in the Texas Legislature in modern history, starting with a marathon filibuster and ending with a down-to-the wire, frenetic vote marked by questions about whether Republicans tried to break chamber rules and jam the measure through.

Democrats put their hopes of thwarting the bill in the hands of Wendy Davis, a state senator clad in pink running shoes, for a daylong attempt to talk the bill to death. Over the duration of the speech, Davis became a social media star, even becoming the subject of a tweet from President Obama for her efforts.

But just before midnight, Republicans claimed she strayed off topic and got help with a back brace — two things that are against filibuster rules — and cut her off.

That cleared the way for a vote.

But when Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst shouted into the microphone, trying to call the final votes, nobody seemed to hear him. Some 400 supporters jammed into the gallery had taken their feet with a deafening roar, drowning out his voice. It was, as some claimed, a "people's filibuster" — an attempt by protesters to finish what Davis had started more than 11 hours earlier.

"Get them out!" Republican Sen. Donna Campbell shouted to a security guard. "... I want them out of here!"

As the crowd clapped and shouted "shame, shame, shame," Dewhurst gathered Republican lawmakers around Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw to register their votes. Democrats ran forward, holding up their cellphones, which showed it was past midnight.

But Dewhurst and other Republicans insisted the first vote was cast before midnight by the Legislature's clock and that the bill had passed.

By the time decorum was restored and the 19-10 vote in favor of the measure was recorded, the clock read 12:03 a.m. Confusion took over: The Republicans had passed the bill, but did it count? Were the votes tallied in time?

Reporters checked the Senate's official website and saw the vote registered on Wednesday, after the deadline. But a short time later, the website was updated to show the vote on Tuesday. Sen. Chuy Hinojosa produced two official printouts of the vote, each showing a different day for the same vote.

After protests from angry Democrats, senators met privately with Dewhurst for more than an hour. Eventually, he returned to the then-empty Senate chamber and declared that while the bill had passed, he didn't have time to sign it, so it wasn't approved. In return for declaring the measure dead, Democrats promised not to question the date of the vote any further.

While altering a public record is illegal, stopping the clock to allow for a vote or changing the journal before it is published are long traditions in the Texas Legislature and unlikely to lead to a prosecution.

The bill would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and forced many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles — a tall order in rural communities.

The law's provision that abortions be performed at surgical centers means only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics would remain in operation in a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion.

Conservatives and anti-abortion campaigners joined Dewhurst in condemning the "unruly mob" for violating the Senate's decorum by screaming obscenities at Republican backers of the bill.

Texas Democrats, though, see an opportunity to capitalize just months after setting up a grassroots organization called "Battleground Texas" with a $36 million cash infusion. And they circled around Davis — the teen mom turned Harvard Law School grad whose Twitter followers rocketed from 1,200 to 83,000 in just 24 hours.

"As Sen. Wendy Davis most powerfully emphasized, Democrats are not afraid of a fight," said Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party chairman. "Last night was a turning point in that story of Texas."


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gov-call...211507600.html

[Greyson]

IMO, she is an outstanding example of an elected official. The Republicans say "grandstanding." I say intelligent woman with conviction. Side note, I just saw the National Planned Parenthood president, Cecila Richards on Rachel Maddow's news broadcast. Ms. Richards is the daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards. Ann Richards another extraordinary woman and leader.
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Texas. State Sen. Wendy Davis is all the rage in the Democratic party for her fights over abortion rights and education funding. Republicans aren't so sold on her grandstanding.


CONFLICT WITH REPUBLICANS

• Tuesday's filibuster was not Davis' first. In 2011, she led a shorter filibuster that prevented the Texas state legislature from passing a budget that removed $4 billion from public schools.

• Davis' 2011 filibuster drew the ire of Texas Republicans, who were forced to meet for a special session. She was dropped from the Texas Senate Committee on Education by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) following the filibuster. Gov. Rick Perry called Davis a "show horse" after the incident.

• Davis became the 12th Democratic member of the Texas State Senate in 2008. That electoral victory and her re-election in 2012 prevented Senate Republicans from establishing a filibuster-proof majority.

• In 2011, Republicans engineered a redistricting plan that attempted to shift Davis into a more conservative district. After a battle in federal courts, attorneys for the state announced in late May that they would drop their effort to redraw Davis' district's boundaries, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

HARDSCRABBLE BEGINNINGS

• Davis was raised by a single mother with a sixth-grade education and began working at the age of 14 to support her mother and three siblings.

• She worked at an Orange Julius and sold subscriptions to the Star-Telegram, according to the New York Times.

• Living in a trailer park at the age of 19, Davis was already a divorced single mother. Despite her predicament, she went on to complete high school, junior college and an undergraduate degree at Texas Christian University, where she graduated first in her class.

• Davis was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went on to receive her law degree from Harvard. She then remarried and had a second daughter. Davis divorced again in 2003.

Read More:

http://news.msn.com/us/who-is-texas-...en-wendy-davis

[Kobi]

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - A Kansas judge on Friday issued a temporary injunction on two parts of the state's new anti-abortion law, while upholding the majority of far-reaching measure that goes into effect Monday.

Shawnee County District Judge Rebecca Crotty struck down a part of the law that forbids a waiver of the required 24-hour waiting period to be granted based on the woman's mental health.

Crotty also struck down a part of the law requiring abortion providers on their websites to vouch for the accuracy and independence of the state's health department material on abortions.

Crotty ruled that forcing abortion providers to attest to material would be an infringement on free speech.

Kansas is one of a handful of states, primarily in the country's south and midsection, to have passed or enacted laws restricting abortion recently. Some of the measures appeared designed to stand as challenges to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

Crotty refused to issue an injunction on the rest of the measure, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Sam Brownback in April.

The law defines life as beginning at fertilization, blocks tax credits for abortion services, bars employees of abortion clinics from providing sex education in schools and bans abortions based solely on the gender of the fetus.

Crotty's injunction will stay in effect, pending future hearings, said Teresa Woody, the lawyer for doctors Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, who brought the lawsuit.

Kansas is one of seven states to have laws that say life begins at fertilization, according to the anti-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which researches abortion-related laws nationwide.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/kansas-judg...040248614.html