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Wendy Davis Awesomely Filibusters SB5, And Succeeds In Killing It!
Wednesday 26th June 2013 | Camille
After an intense and nail-biting few hours it has been declared that Texas Senator Wendy Davis succeeded in killing SB5, the anti-abortion bill that would have closed all but five abortion clinics in the state of Texas, severely limiting women’s access to safe and legal abortions.
Wendy Davis began her gruelling filibuster at 11.18am CDT, during the filibuster she was allowed no bathroom breaks, no food or drink and she was not permitted to sit down or even lean on her desk. Davis aimed to speak until midnight to delay a vote on the bill, preventing it from being passed. Republicans found a way to end the filibuster at 10.03pm, after Davis had been speaking for 10 hours and 45 minutes, bringing the final of three points of order against her. Davis’s fellow Democrats then delayed the vote using various motions and inquiries; Senator Van de Putte asked for a summary of the previous points of order as she had been away for a large chunk of the filibuster; and Senator Kirk Watson began a sort of filibuster of his own, taking up as much time as he could. With less than fifteen minutes to go Van de Putte asked what a female member of the Senate had to do to be heard over her male colleagues, at this point the massive crowd that had gathered in the Senate and in the gallery over the past 13 hours erupted into cheering that delayed the vote until 12.03am.
There was a lot of confusion this morning when Republicans insisted that the Bill had passed, as they took a vote on it before midnight, but people could clearly see on the livestream that the vote didn’t pass until 12.03am. Well the final judgement is in (finally) and SB5 has been declared dead, for now.
There is a big problem with the idea of filibustering in general and many people disagree with it (quite rightly) because it is undemocratic. But I think in this case we can celebrate knowing that Democrat Senators in Texas used this flawed procedure to stop an even more flawed, and indeed harmful, bill coming to pass. There is no doubt that we will hear more from this bill in the future but for now we can celebrate that it hasn’t been passed yet and the sheer amount of global and national support for Wendy Davis shows that a lot of people have a problem with men legislating against women’s right to have control of their own bodies.
Camille Merrells
