Texas House sets abortion debate - Politico

The Lone Star State’s abortion debate comes roaring back to life this week as the Texas statehouse takes up a controversial abortion bill on Tuesday.

According to a newly released schedule from the Texas House of Representatives, House Bill 2 — the abortion measure in question — is the only order of business on the calendar for Tuesday, as the Legislature reconvenes. Observers can expect a “long House floor debate tomorrow,” with a “vote as soon as they finish,” a senior Republican legislative aide told POLITICO on Monday.

The legislation, which passed out of committee in the House last week, would ban abortions at 20 weeks and would force the closure of almost every abortion-providing clinic in the state, critics charge. The issue was at the heart of the 13-hour filibuster led late last month by state Sen. Wendy Davis, drawing the national spotlight to Texas.

(PHOTOS: Wendy Davis’s filibuster)

On Monday morning, a hearing on the matter held by the state’s Senate Committee on Health and Human Services got under way. Public testimony kicked off around noon East Coast time, with nearly 400 people registered to testify and about 1,700 in line to sign up at the beginning of the hearing, said the Republican committee chair, state Sen. Jane Nelson.

Nelson said she didn’t anticipate planned breaks, with testimony instead plowing straight through the day. She estimated around 2:00 p.m. that testimony would run for about 16 hours. The first part of the hearing was largely devoted to testimony from expert witnesses. At about 1:30 Monday afternoon, the committee began to hear more testimony from the general public. The rhetoric was heated, with both sides discussing “killing” of babies versus of women. One woman testified forcefully against the bill, her three-year-old child sitting next to her; another testifying for the bill invoked her grandson and said, voice rising, that at 20 weeks, he could hear her talking to him. Several offered highly graphic testimony concerning abortions.

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Davis, whose spokesman told POLITICO she had no plans to testify at the hearing, tweeted a picture of the crowd on Monday.

“Great to have so many Texans in the Capitol this morning making their voices heard. Democracy in action! #txlege,” she wrote.