Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press
Opponents and supporters of new abortion restrictions in Texas gathered Friday at the Capitol.
AUSTIN, Tex. — The Texas Senate gave final passage on Friday to one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the country, legislation championed by Gov. Rick Perry, who rallied the Republican-controlled Legislature late last month after a Democratic filibuster blocked the bill and intensified already passionate resistance by abortion-rights supporters.
The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements. Its supporters say that the strengthened requirements for the structures and doctors will protect women's health; opponents argue that the restrictions are actually intended to put financial pressure on the clinics that perform abortions and will force most of them to shut their doors.
Mr. Perry applauded lawmakers for passing the bill, saying "Today the Texas Legislature took its final step in our historic effort to protect life." Legislators and anti-abortion activists, he said "tirelessly defended our smallest and most vulnerable Texans and future Texans."
Debate over the bill has ignited fierce exchanges between lawmakers, and tense confrontations between opponents of the bill, who have worn orange, and supporters of the bill wearing blue. Signs and slogans have been everywhere, bearing long, impassioned arguments or the simple scrawl on a young man's orange shirt, a Twitter-esque "@TXLEGE: U R dumb."
The bill had come nearly this far before: a version had been brought to the Senate in the previous session of the Legislature, in June, and was killed by State Senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, with an 11-hour filibuster that stalled the bill until after the deadline for ending the session. The filibuster became an overnight sensation on Twitter and other forms of social media, with more than 180,000 people viewing the filibuster live online.
Almost immediately, however, Governor Perry called for another special session to reconsider the bill, resulting in Friday night's vote.
The fight has been heavy with symbols. The House bill's author, Representative Jodie Laubenberg, a Republican from Parker, dangled a pair of baby shoes before her as she spoke on Tuesday; Representative Senfronia Thompson, who offered an early amendment to the bill, was flanked by colleagues holding wire hangers, representing the brutal abortion methods they said would return if legitimate clinics were run out of business.
Ms. Laubenberg has said that the bill would close no abortion clinics, adding, "It is time these clinics put patients ahead of profits."
Supporters of the bill in the legislature have been angered by the language of their opponents. During floor debate on Tuesday, Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican of Dallas, said that "I shall stand with Texas women, but I shall stand here no longer and be accused of conducting a 'war on women'." He said "we care for and we fight for human baby lives," and showed a sonogram of his own child at 13 weeks, he said, "I will fight, and I will fight, and I will fight to protect my baby."
During the Senate debate, the dean of the Senate, John Whitmire, who is a Democrat, angrily told Senator Dan Patrick, a Republican, "I can't sit here and let you question my faith."
The bill was opposed by many doctors, including leaders of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Texas Medical Association; the gynecologists' group has run advertisements locally that question the scientific underpinnings of the legislation and tell legislators to "Get out of our exam rooms."
The Senate took up the bill Friday afternoon, but people had begun lining up for seats in the third-floor Senate gallery early in the morning, a line that stretched from that floor into the basement of the Capitol. Department of Public Safety officers, their numbers swelled in anticipation of crowds and tumult, searched every bag and confiscated anything that could be thrown — including, for part of the day and until the practice became an object of derision online, tampons. Department of Public Safety officials stated that the searches had turned up jars "suspected to contain" urine, feces and paint, along with glitter and confetti, but offered no proof.
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