'The Fight for the Future ... Is Just Beginning'

Sens. Kirk Watson and Wendy Davis (Photo by Jana Birchum)

As expected, the Texas Senate Friday voted 19-11 in favor of passing House Bill 2, the sweeping and controversial abortion regulations bill – briefly adjourning and reconvening near midnight in order to pass the bill again on a third and final reading.

In an impassioned speech shortly before the vote, Austin Sen. Kirk Watson lamented the fact that the Senate has "discarded" its "traditions and practices" in an effort to impose regulations "as extreme as any in the nation," and that could be considered the "poster child for heavy-handed government regulation."

Had Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst not abandoned Senate tradition, Watson noted – eliminating the so-called "blocker bill" that prevented the GOP majority from passing the bill in the regular session – the majority would have had to work with the Democrats to draft a compromise measure, one that would embrace many of the proposals raised Friday as amendments and summarily rejected: from an exemption for victims of rape and incest to a proposal to provide birth control without parental consent to teen mothers.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, disagreed, noting that the blocker bill held the GOP majority subject to the "tyranny of the minority" during the regular session. "When we destroy a baby's life, we are destroying an image of God," he said melodramatically. "Who speaks for the baby?"

As the final vote grew close, several protesters donned fake blood on their clothes and tried to chain themselves to the Senate gallery rail; only one, Jaime Leigh Tilley, succeeded, requiring Department of Public Safety officers to use bolt cutters to free her. Others yelled "Shame on you!" and were removed from the gallery. Watson pleaded for calm and told his colleagues, there is still "room and still time for us to all come together."

Defending the bill, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said that as a mother, she considers herself "an expert in the unborn child." In "my expert opinion," she said, "an unborn, five-month child does feel pain ... and has the right to live." She said the regulations that impact doctors and clinics are there to make sure women seeking abortion do so in a "safe" environment.

Watson was unimpressed. The "indignant claims" and "insistent spin" that these measures are about women's health and safety "are bogus ... and hypocritical," he said. He's heard colleagues wonder why it is that some people say they've declared a "War on Women." Yet when these issues arise, the only answer the GOP has is to "take away women's rights" and to try to drive the clock back to when "abortion was not safe and not legal."

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, pointed out that her Democratic colleagues would support a bill that covered only a 20-week ban (provided the language contained appropriate patient protections), as evidenced by their collective vote against tabling her amendment to that end. By attaching all the other dubious provisions to the bill, the GOP lost out on an opportunity to create a bipartisan "pro-life" measure. "That goal could've been accomplished," she said. Sen. Wendy Davis closed by saying she believes in the beauty of life, and also the beauty of women who "deserve to live, deserve to determine the direction of their lives, deserve to be recognized as full people, capable of making decisions. The fight for the future of Texas is just beginning."

Throughout the evening, the GOP majority rejected any and all amendments to HB 2. Indeed, after a heated exchange between Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and the bill's sponsor, Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy (author of SB 1, the Senate companion), the senators rejected an amendment to exempt child victims of rape and incest from the 20-week ban. They also rejected amendments that would give teen mothers access to birth control without parental consent, remove medically inaccurate language from the Woman's Right to Know pamphlet (given to all women seeking abortion), and require state-funded crisis pregnancy centers to provide comprehensive health care counseling.

Senators supporting the bill used their floor time to bolster their "pro-life" bona fides: Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said medical experts often disagree – e.g., on whether a baby feels pain at 20 weeks – but it's important to err on the side of caution. Patrick gravely described the necessity of requiring a woman to make four doctor visits in order to obtain a medical abortion (one induced by RU-486). The point, he said, is that the "killer drug" destroys the fetus cells and so the repeated visits are made not to protect the fetus, but to protect the mother, to ensure those cells are "flushed" out of her body. "As a Texan, who cares about my fellow man," he began, before adding, "and woman," he "values her life as much as the life in her womb."

On Thursday morning, orange-clad opponents of HB 2 rose from their chairs while singing Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It," as the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 6-3 along party lines to pass the measure on to the full body. After explaining that he would not support an exemption for victims of rape and incest, Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friends­wood, said that during the marathon committee hearing on the bill that was held July 8, he heard lots of testimony that amounted to people "making bad choices" and then wanting to "walk away from that choice." He noted that babies born into a bad situation in the "slums" of India may not have many opportunities, but that is not the case with babies born in the United States.