A few hours ago, the Texas (United States) senate declared the anti-abortion bill 'dead'.  The Bill would have been very easily passed had it not been for Wendy Davis, Texas Senator , who put up a filibuster to stop it from being voted.

The Bill, called the Texas State Bill 5 (or just SB5) proposed to strengthen anti-abortion laws in state – a place already known for strong anti-choice sentiments.

Salient features of SB5

In totality, the SB5 proposes the following restrictions on abortion, among others.

Abortion after 20 week of conception (which is counted from the date of the fusion of the human spermatozoa with human ovum) is not allowed as research indicates that a foetus at 20 weeks and later is capable of feeling pain.

The physician performing or inducing an abortion, must, on the date the abortion is performed, have active admitting privileges at a hospital that:

(A) is located not further than 30 miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced; and

(B) provides obstetrical or gynecological healthcare services

The bill does not apply to abortions that are necessary to avert the death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.

The bill also restricts the prescription of anti-abortion pills or any other medication exclusively used to terminate pregnancy after 20 weeks of conception.

The sub-chapter C — 'ABORTION PROHIBITED AT OR AFTER 20 WEEKS POST-FERTILIZATION' in the anti-abortion bill, funnily more pro-foetus than pro-women, has been cited as the 'Preborn Pain Act'. Surely, the state is more concerned about the pain of the pre-born child than the pain, both emotional and physical, of the woman who is actually bearing the child.

Why it couldn't be passed in a state with overt pro-life sentiments?

A valiant fight by senator Wendy Davis who took a filibuster to prolong the debate on the bill stopped it in its tracks. According to Wendy, bills which curtail a woman's right to choice for abortion reduce their access to abortion providers, and thus, the ability to make their own family planning decisions.

Davis, who was required by filibuster guidelines to speak standing for 13 hours without eating, drinking or going to the washroom or even without bending on the podium spoke for straight 10 hours against the bill. She was also not allowed to speak off-topic for the filibuster to be successful.
She fell short of three hours when the assembly voted that she has overshot her three warnings by speaking off-topic on the abortion pill RU-486. However, the house filled with the noise of people chanting her name after which the bill was declared dead in the senate.

Wendy's 10 hour speech was live streamed by 182,000 people simultaneously which is more than the number of people who simultaneously live stream such popular events as football in America.

Pro-life or anti-women?

The SB5 marks itself as pro-life and claims to be working for foetuses which can “feel pain after 20 weeks”. It also claims to protect women who suffer in the hands of substandard health care institutions and under experienced physicians. The bill also claims that it does not pose an undue burden or a substantial obstacle on a woman's ability to have an abortion because the woman has adequate time to decide whether to have an abortion in the first 20 weeks after fertilization; and as stated before, it allows for abortion after 20 weeks if it is hazardous for the woman to have the child.

If the state actually intended to provide better medical facilities to the women, it would have done so without restricting abortions for women. Better medical facilities are a state prerogative and it should provide the same without impinging on the right of choice of its citizens. An abortion also in no way is a painful procedure.

The Texas government has got it all wrong. In becoming pro-life, they do not understand that there cannot be anything crueler for a child than a mother who did not want him/her in the first place.