Wendy Davis, pink-sneakered mascot of the late-term abortion lobby, left the Texas state senate to run for governor. She got walloped Tuesday, losing to Greg Abbott by just shy of a million votes. Her seat in the state senate has just been won by Konni Burton. This, my friends, is how to go on offense with the life issues in a campaign.
Related post, from June 2013: Reality check: what’s a “toughest” abortion law?
From the Huffington Post: Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who will go down in history as the abortion absolutist who filibustered a Texas bill (which passed anyway) limiting post-20-week abortions, is coming to Washington, D.C. next week for a pair of fundraising events. HuffPost lists eight U.S. senators as special guests, including New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen.
Shaheen is up for re-election in 2014.
No one is forcing Shaheen to attend. She is presumably accepting the invitation because she wants to help Davis, who may or may not be running for a higher office. Davis has reportedly received over $1 million in donations already since her filibuster.
I’ve written before about the two principal provisions of the Texas bill. Shaheen is supporting a woman who opposes making sure women are as safe in an abortion facility as they would be in any other ambulatory-care center. She is also supporting a woman who has no apparent problem with induced abortion of 21-week (or 31-week, or 39-week) human fetuses.
So will this be an issue when Shaheen is challenged next year, or will it be a “distraction”? Potential GOP challengers should chew on that one for awhile.
What does it take to have the “toughest abortion law in the country”?
Not much, apparently.
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has called the Texas legislature into second special session for July 1. The legislature failed to vote on SB5, a bill to regulate abortion, before a midnight deadline at the end of a first special session on June 25. A pro-abortion filibuster by a pink-sneakered abortion-absolutist legislator was reportedly augmented by a disruptive crowd in the gallery. Dr. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life described the scene:
At 12:03 last night, the Texas Senate voted 19-10 to pass a pro-life omnibus bill that Democrat senator Wendy Davis had been filibustering earlier. But that was three minutes too late. The bill had to pass by midnight. Why were they three minutes late recording the vote? Because abortion activists had succeeded in creating so much chaos in the chamber, the Senate was unable to maintain an orderly process. The filibuster actually ended at 10:30, leaving an hour and a half in the legislative session to consider the bill. But mob rule took over with the protestors [sic] in the galleries overwhelming the number of police there to keep order.
What was in what the New York Times called “some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country”?
Full text of the bill as introduced is here. Tough, hmmm?
Abby Johnson is calling on pro-lifers to get to Austin on July 1. Her Facebook page will have updates in the coming days.
Leaven for the Loaf 