So state Sen. Wendy Davis, Democrat of Fort Worth, has made it official. She is running for governor of Texas.
Let’s set the politics of the race aside for a moment.
Wendy Davis would not be in the conversation at all if not for one action that she took.
The Texas Senate was deliberating a modest bill that did two things. The first of those was that it restricted abortions after five months of pregnancy.
At five months, this is what’s happening.
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The baby’s organs have developed. She has a face and fingers and toes. She may look like this.
Wendy Davis wants to ensure that that baby could still be ripped apart and discarded in unsanitary, unregulated abortion mills.
On June 25th of this year, the previously obscure state Sen. Wendy Davis stood up and filibustered the bill that would defend the baby’s life. Davis didn’t have the numbers to win, and she didn’t have the facts or arguments to prevail. She had a hardcore pro-abortion ideology, she had a zeal to protect the Democrat-controlled abortion industry lobbyist Planned Parenthood, and she had a media that spread the word on her behalf. She also had a president who thought her antics were “special.”
Something special is happening in Austin tonight: http://t.co/RpbnCbO6zw #StandWithWendy
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 26, 2013
The other thing that the bill before the Senate that day would do is defend women from monsters like Kermit Gosnell.
Gosnell is the abortionist who was convicted of running an abortion slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania. He killed babies after they were born. He mutilated women. He kept souvenirs of his kills in jars. Gosnell allowed staff with no medical training at all to perform procedures in his clinic. His clinic — abattoir — went unregulated for more than a decade because the politics of abortion got in the way of cleanliness and safety and women’s health.
The Texas bill would prevent another Gosnell by mandating that abortionists have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, ensuring that they are qualified doctors, and that women who access the clinics may get emergency treatment if something goes wrong. Many things went wrong over the course of Gosnell’s heinous career. The bill also upgraded standards at abortion clinics to defend the women who access them.
Outside the filibuster, there were other signs of evil. One, the media that utterly ignored the Gosnell horror trial made Davis a hero and turned her pink shoes into icons. Two, Davis’ supporters tried to destroy Texas’ legislative process to get their way. They engaged in some of the most disgusting, disgraceful — frankly, evil — tactics to force their will. Fortunately, they failed. Three, the Davis filibuster gave rise to a heinous lie — that the Texas Democrats were “standing with women.” They were standing with some women, but very much against other women, including the sponsors of the bill that Davis filibustered. The Texas Democrats and their new champion stood against the majority of Texas women, who are pro-life, to stop a law that most Texans support.
Should any of this have become a platform for rise of Texas’ next governor? What about any of this suggests that Wendy Davis would bring solid, sensible leadership to the pro-life state? Does any of this suggest that she is even remotely qualified?
Wendy Davis stands very little chance of winning. But if she does, her rise to fame, and the lies that powered it, would mark a horrible turning point for the state of Texas and for the country.
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