9140788925_5898d68d86As 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:

Rise up

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…

pro-choice abortion vigil Texas HB2 pro-life

I finally found video by KEYE CBS News. Here’s a screenshot of attendees…

Vigil Texas State Capital, one yr anniversary Wendy Davis filibuster pro-choice activists

[HT: Andrew Smith; top photo via Ms Magazine]

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