I just wanted to take a minute to thank Senator Wendy Davis and the passionate pro-choice people of Texas for a huge victory. In case you weren't following, there was a vote last night on a bill that would impose regulations that would effectively close 37 of the states'' 42 abortion clinics.
I recognize that abortion is a complex moral issue, and I mean no disrespect to those who have conflicting opinions. But the fact is that stopping access to safe abortion service doesn't stop abortion. It just stops safe abortion, jeopardizing the lives of women desperate enough to seek alternative means. In the African countries where I've lived, abortion remains illegal and women don't have the same options that we do in America. So when I see these rights being slowly eroded at home, it makes me think of the women I know who died from ingesting laundry detergent as an abortifacient, and I'm terrified that our senators and political leaders can't see the faces of these women, of the reality of what it is that they are legislating.
Senator Davis led an almost 11 hour filibuster to block the vote on this bill. ELEVEN HOURS. Without eating, drinking, sitting or a bathroom break.
When, three hours short of midnight, Davis wasn't allowed to continue, said to have violated the rules of going off topic and leaning on something (a fellow senator as he was fitting her with a back brace", the people took over.
"The voices of the people who were in the Capitol gallery tonight could not be silenced, and it simply didn't allow the vote to be taken in time," Davis said early Wednesday.
It was the people. The people demanded justice.
Led by people like Senator Davis, it is overwhelming to think of what we can accomplish.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/26/politics/texas-abortion-bill/
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