Peek into meeting of Texas abortion activists shows pathetic disarray
As the one-year anniversary approached of the passage in Texas of House Bill 2, a wide-ranging piece of pro-life legislation, I wrote a post, “Texas abortion allies try to ‘recapture the energy’ they said they’d never lose.”
When July 12 came and went without much more than Twitter angst, it became clear to those on the outside the 2013 spark had died.
But does the view from the inside match?
Notes from the July 2 meeting of Dallas for Reproductive Justice, attended by six people, give a glimpse of a statewide movement that is a dying ember of its momentarily fired up former self. And if the pro-abortion furor we saw inspired by Wendy Davis in Texas last year can’t be sustained, where can it be?
In its notes, D4RJ first reported on efforts by Rise Up Texas, the Texas abortion movement’s parent organization:
[A g]roup of core organizers has helped kept it going. Rise Up holds general assemblies…. In RU, people burned out, because of all the time and energy that they spent at the capital…. RU needed time to get back some of their energy…. RU is having a planning meeting on Sunday, 7.6.14…. Long term they aim to rebuild their base - not with the same expectation of #s but stronger….
D4RJ is planning on meeting up the same time of RU’s Sunday meeting, 7.6.14, at 8PM so that we can be a part of the next conversation.
Whoops, ixnay on that meeting and any conversation. From Rise Up’s Facebook page:
But then there is Movable Mob, right? Movable Mob is another spoke in the Texas abortion activists’ wheel, writing about itself: “We are gonna get an RV and go around TX, learning about local repro justice organizing, live-streaming it, and encouraging the unruly mob. Summer 2014.”
Well, hey, that’s now! So what’s happening with that unruly RV caravan? From D4RJ’s notes:
Moveable [sic] Mob is a tour that was planned for 11th of June to end on the 25th (anniversary of the filibuster) but was delayed due to being behind on fundraising, promoting & relationship building. It has been postponed to take place in September although it is still being organized….
Movable Mob’s last Facebook entry was May 12, at which point they were revising the dates of their unruly RV tour to September 8-22, “BUT WE CAN’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!” An interesting factoid from D4RJ’s notes:
One proposed purpose of MM was to have it two-way as a fundraiser for the Wendy Davis campaign. Rocío communicated that RISE UP discourages this approach since Wendy Davis has tried to distance herself from the issue and since they don’t want to divert energy away from the movements to political campaigns….
Thoughtful of Rise Up to try to conserve energy, since there’s not much of it.
So even though abortion activists were there for Wendy Davis, don’t count on a return favor. She has realized the abortion movement that propelled her to fame is radioactive.
But the passage of HB2 should certainly draw minorities to the abortion movement, right? After all, we were told minorities are the most negatively impacted by a 20-week abortion ban and abortion clinic safety regulations. But no, from the notes:
RU has tried to coordinate with Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition. Some initial reactions were that not seeing anything wrong with HB2 (partially due to stances on abortion). Part of RU’s approach is to inform women of color of the basic facts as who is going to be impacted by HB2 and expanding the issue beyond abortion.
So the abortion issue is radioactive not just with a certain blonde liberal politician but also with women of color. And the only way the abortion movement thinks it can draw them in is to not talk about abortion.
But Texas abortion activists will always have July 12, apparently akin to 9/11. To that end, they held a “#WeRemember HB2 Anniversary Vigil” to mark that somber day. I couldn’t find any photos by any of their groups anywhere, which I thought was odd. Apparently, the vigil wasn’t easy to find…
I finally found video by KEYE CBS News. Here’s a screenshot of attendees…
[HT: Andrew Smith; top photo via Ms Magazine]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Schadenfreude
“Part of RU’s approach is to inform women of color of the basic facts as who is going to be impacted by HB2 and expanding the issue beyond abortion.”
They want to expand the issue beyond abortion when talking about an abortion bill? Open palm, insert face.
A population control movement lamenting a lack of population. By their fruits…
like a wreck in slow motion.
since the filibuster, wendy has expressed support for 20 week ban:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wendy-davis-open-to-supporting-20-week-abortion-ban/
She might have lost some of the Marxist love at that point.
Or, when she voiced interest in open carry:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/wendy-davis-open-carry_n_4736829.html
She may have lost a little steam when a 2012 break-in at her place came up for trial – the news coverage makes it seem like she sure did not want to talk a whole bunch. -possibly because her co-habitating boyfriend is the one who bumped into the intruder of the home, and that just doesn’t look so good right after it is made pretty clear that she let a stepdad raise her kids as she completed law school, then dumped the guy once the diploma showed up in the mail.
kinda makes her sound a bit ambitious, but hey, just lean on in, wendy. lean on in.
http://fwbusinesspress.com/fwbp/article/1/5568/Breaking-News/Wendy-Davis-testified-after-break-in-at-home.aspx
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20140118-as-wendy-davis-touts-life-story-in-race-for-governor-key-facts-blurred.ece
this kinda stuff makes me truly miss ann richards.
Is there an accurate estimate of how large that unruly crowd was at the State House a year ago?
From the pictures it looked like several hundred, perhaps a thousand. Was it that many?
I did some web search. USA TODAY reported “More than 2,000 demonstrators filled the Capitol building in Austin to oppose the bill.”
That’s a big crowd, I suppose.
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By comparison, we had that many pro-lifers turn out in the deep February cold of Madison, WI, to show our opposition to an effort to perform late-term abortions at University hospital surgical center. And then a daily prayer-vigil presence on the sidewalks for several months, until the directors gave up in defeat, because we really are a movement.
There were about 50 rude and noisy pro-borts to oppose us. At least one got himself arrested. That’s how they roll.
What is it with abortion advocates and their racist condescension toward “women of color”. Like their liberal counterparts who view non white people as children, always in need of a helping hand.
I don’t know why white abortion activists feel the need to hep us po’ cullid wimmens out, Mary. Yet when white prolifers point out the high rate of abortion in the black community, its “racist.” Go figure.
That is so true phillymiss thank for pointing out the hypocrisy of pro-aborts related to race. If being prolife was motivated by racism of white prolifers wouldn’t they be overjoyed to see black babies being mutilated and exterminated by abortion. Good grief. “You could not make this stuff up”. Margaret Sanger PP’s founder is the one who wanted to exterminate the “human weeds”. God help these people and God help America.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/politics/Wendy-Davis-draws-1600-to-filibuster-anniversary-event-264682601.html
This event at the one-year anniversary reportedly had 1,600 ppl – a pretty good crowd. But it looks like not a ‘war-on-women’ pro-abortion events, but a big campaign event for both Davis and Van de Putte, another current candidate for state-wise office.
The Wendy Davis filibuster is supposed to be some proud moment for the progressives. But it is stuff like that that turned me off to democrat politics, which I had been involved in literally all of my life, for decades. My friends and colleagues talked in stereotypical and negative ways about any conservative that it was making them blind to common sense and normal discourse.
Friends were happy to brag about stealing yard signs and destroying bigger campaign signs that probably each have a cost at or above $200.
Wendy Davis did not block that abortion-restricting bill by her filibuster. She fell 15 minutes short when the Lt Governor used legit procedures to try to get a vote on that bill, and a few more bills, before that special session ended, in 15 minutes. The Lt Gov would have completed this goal. The bill would have passed.
This is typical, recognized legislative procedure.
What interfered was this: mob interference in the regular workings of that legislature.
The observing crowd, who were legitimately observing – that is legal – began yelling and making so much noise that the regular business of the legislature was interrupted.
Thus, the 15-minute window to pass the bill was disrupted by a mob having an influence by mob-type activity: interfering by disruptive yelling and cheering.
If other means had been used, such as a bomb threat, it would have been more obvious that anarchy or mob or disorder had been used to interfere with the regular business of that governmental body.
If an electrical problem had put out the electricity, it would be recognized that an act of nature had interfered.
What happened fits the definition of mob rules.
At the noted link, Davis and others have framed this recognized fact as a matter of “the people speaking” or “the people having their voice.”
As if the legislature does one thing, and ordinary citizens do not.
This is uninformed or directly misleading.
The people elect each state’s legislature, who conduct each state’s law-making business.
This is the height, the pinnacle, of human civilization: the rule of law.
The bill passed, as it would have otherwise, if normal civilized rule-of-law procedures could have played out on June 25, 2013, in a later special session.
The reason to glorify the mob rules event is to desperately reframe it as some rallying point of some imagined majority of citizens, not the views of extreme leftists.