The Texas Legislature got off to a dramatic start on Tuesday with one lawmaker brandishing a coathanger on the House floor as the chamber took up the abortion measure that has roiled the state and the country in the weeks since a 13-hour filibuster derailed its passage in the last session.
The Texas House of Representatives opened at 10 a.m. local time after the July Fourth recess to consider House Bill 2, which imposes a ban on abortions after 20 weeks and, critics charge, would shutter nearly every abortion-providing clinic in the state due to stringent clinic regulations. The measure failed to be fully passed at the end of the last session due to a filibuster late last month led by state Sen. Wendy Davis, who became a national liberal icon overnight.
The measure is the only major bill on the calendar for Tuesday. GOP State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, the House sponsor of the bill, introduced the measure, and signaled that she wouldn’t be open to amendments. But that didn’t stop state Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson from advocating forcefully for an amendment allowing abortion ban exceptions in the cases of rape and incest.
Thompson and others who accompanied her on the floor brandished several props including wire coat hangers, knitting needles, feathers and turpentine. She charged that without rape and incest exceptions extended beyond the first five months of gestation, sexual assault victims would use those tools to obtain abortions.
“Forced rape, forced incest and then you gonna force them to have their child, force them to do that against their will?” she said toward the conclusion of a highly graphic speech. At one point, she asked, “Why would you want to force them to drink turpentine or to use a knitting needle in order” to achieve an abortion.
That amendment didn’t receive enough votes to move forward, but a similar one was quickly put forth by state Rep. Sarah Davis, the only Republican in the House who opposed the abortion legislation last time.
“This is not a Republican versus a Democratic issue,” she said before the House voted to table her proposal. “I think we all want what’s best. I know we’ve been told to just keep the bill clean, fight off all amendments, but we are here. The nation is watching what we are doing today on the floor…now is not the time to play political football with women. Now is the time to pass good policy, good pro-life policy.”
The amendments debate means the legislature may be facing a long day. Four hours after the session opened, the amendments debate was still raging and tempers were short on the floor as Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia clashed with GOP state Rep. Jeff Leach, accusing him of mischaracterizing his words. The two were reprimanded for interrupting each other before Anchia’s amendment was halted.
A day earlier, a senior Republican legislative aide in the statehouse told POLITICO to expect a “long House floor debate” with a “vote as soon as they finish.”
Within about half an hour of starting the session, discussion of the bill was underway. House Speaker Joe Straus, a Republican, told those in attendance that “part of my job is to enforce our rules,” and that he appreciates “your cooperation in respecting our rules as we debate today” — possibly a nod to the protesters who helped shout down the bill in the last session.
After introducing the measure, Laubenberg immediately got into a contentious exchange with state Rep. Jessica Farrar, the leader of the House Democratic Caucus, concerning the health of pregnant women and circumstances under which they could receive abortions.
“You may believe it, but the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists…opposes this legislation,” Farrar charged, when Laubenberg said the bill was solid as-is and didn’t need amendments.
In another period of questioning, Laubenberg pushed back on the assertion that the bill’s regulations would lead to widespread closures of clinics.
“Raising their standards will not force them to close,” she said.
She also argued that in addition to the ban on abortions past 20 weeks, “The other parts of bill truly are to make sure, when a woman is going through this very serious [procedure] …they’re doing it in the best environment possible.”
The debate turned personal when Democratic Rep. Dawnna Dukes mockingly referenced a comment made by Laubenberg, who has previously said that rape kits are used to assist a woman in getting “cleaned out” after rape, when in fact such kits are typically tied to collecting evidence after a possible attack.
Tensions have been running high in Austin: committees in both the state House and Senate have held hearings on the bill that ran late into the night as witnesses offered emotional public testimony on both sides of the issue. Both opponents and supporters of the measure have staged rallies, drawing high-profile speakers including actresses Stephanie March and Lisa Edelstein, who oppose the bill; and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who favors it.
“Tonight, it’s not so much that the eyes of Texas are upon you,” Huckabee said at a Monday evening rally in Austin according to news reports, referencing the classic Lone Star song “The Eyes of Texas.” “It’s that the eyes of America are on Texas.”
A coalition of activists opposing the bill, under the umbrella group “Stand with Texas Women,” on Tuesday kicked off a statewide tour that includes Wendy Davis and Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards.
“We have spoken out in Austin – and now, we are hitting the road to speak out across the state,” Richards said in a statement. “We’ll hear from doctors, Planned Parenthood patients, women whose lives and communities will be affected by these bills. We are going to make sure that folks in Texas see these bills for what they are: a blatant attack on women’s health and rights.”
Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion advocacy group, has also launched a tour. The group left on a bus tour from Washington on Sunday, they said in a statement, picking up activists on the way to Monday’s rally at the state capitol.
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