Democrats in Texas successfully blocked a new bill extending abortion restrictions this week when a mammoth 10 hour “filibuster” speech by state senator Wendy Davis meant some Republican backers of the bill were unable to vote before the midnight deadline.
Although complaints of rule violation meant her speech was cut short about two hours short of the deadline, allowing the Republican-controlled Senate to begin voting, insufficient votes were cast by the closing hour of midnight, 25 June, for the motion to be carried.
The bill called for stricter standards for abortion clinics, banning abortions after 20 weeks. Republican backers said the measures would protect not only women’s health but that of the foetus itself, based on disputed research that suggests pain is felt by a foetus after 20 weeks of development.
Opponents said it would force nearly all Texan abortion clinics to close or be rebuilt.
50 year-old Davis, who began speaking at 11:15 a.m., was prevented by procedural rules from deviating off-topic or taking a break by eating, leaning against her desk, sitting down or using the toilet.
Republicans tried to disrupt her by charging that she meandered off-topic and, at one point, received help adjusting a supportive back brace.
Davis spent the whole afternoon and evening reading testimony and messages decrying the legislation, reciting previously suggested changes to the bill and reflecting on her own life history as a single mother at 19. She said the bill would have cut off her own access to a local Planned Parenthood clinic.
“I was a poor, uninsured woman, whose only care was provided through that facility. It was my medical home,” said Davis, several hours into her speech.
Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst, the Texan Senate president, suspended the filibuster after roughly 10 hours, despite shouts of “let her speak” from supporters.
Filibustering, better known in the UK as “talking out the bill”, is a parliamentary procedure in which opponents of a bill attempt to obstruct it by delaying the vote beyond the deadline. Although used since Ancient Rome and not unknown in the UK, it features especially frequently, and often to great effect, in US senatorial politics.
After the session, Davis said on social media that it was “an incredible victory for Texas women and those who love them.”
