After Republicans in the Texas state house passed a series of anti-abortion laws which would have shuttered abortion clinics in all but the state's five biggest cities on Monday morning, Democrats in the Texas state senate planned to mount a marathon filibuster to avoid coming to a vote on the bill. Texas Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) has been given the game ball by her party after Democrats averted two attempts by Republicans on Monday to bring the vote to the floor ahead of its scheduled time for Tuesday morning - in order to run out the clock on the bill, Davis will need to speak from 11 a.m. on Friday, when the special session begins, until about midnight.
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The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, force many clinics which offer the procedure to upgrade their facilities and acquire classification as ambulatory surgical centers, and require doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles, according to NBC. The requirement that all abortions take place in surgical centers - facilities designed to be able to treat surgeries which could have life-threatening complications - is a standard which 37 of the state's 42 abortion clinics don't meet, as the majority of abortions are not surgical procedures, so many of those clinics would need to spend millions of dollars to relocate. The Associated Press notes that while Texas is one of several conservative states which has tried to pass tough restrictions on abortion, the scope of its effort is especially notable because of the sheer size of the state: it's 773 miles wide and 790 miles long, and has 26 million people living in it.
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If Davis filibusters successfully, it would mark the second time she'd done it. In 2011, according to the Daily Kos, she filibustered against $4 billion in cuts which Texas Governor Rick Perry wanted to make on public school budgets and managed to keep it from reaching the regular session, though Perry later called a special session to get the cuts passed. Texas' Star-Telegram writes that the filibuster is likely to raise Davis' profile as a possible Democratic candidate for governor or other statewide offices. She is currently running for re-election in her Senate district but has not ruled out running for some other position in the future.
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"The leadership may not want to listen to TX women, but they will have to listen to me. I intend to filibuster this bill," wrote Davis on Twitter on Monday night.
The feat is physically demanding. Davis will have to stand in place at the desk without leaning on it and talk or read for 13 consecutive hours. The AP writes that as lawmakers are forbidden to leave for bathroom breaks, they often rely on so-called "astronaut packs" to dispose of human waste.
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