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Texas women aren’t shutting up. They’re standing tall and fighting.

On the same day as Texas House Republicans passed their unconstitutional anti-women’s health bill, the ‘Stand With Texas Women Tour’ rolled into Fort Worth with Texas state Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth). More than 1,400 supporters greeted Davis and other Democratic lawmakers at the Wednesday tour stop.

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Senator Davis told supporters, “I want you to be angry and remember. It was the people’s filibuster that killed that terrible piece of legislation.” Joining Davis were Democratic state Representatives Chris Turner, Lon Burnam, and Nicole Collier.

The rally focused on the damage the Republican bill will do to women’s healthcare programs, forcing most clinics in the state to close. They brought up the low offering of prenatal care in Texas, reminded supporters that if Republicans are so pro-life, why is prenatal care such a low priority in Texas?

This point shouldn’t be missed, since it was the sponsor of HB2, Texas state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R), who argued to toss what Democrats said would be 95,000 children (not born yet) out of the Children’s Health Insurance Program program because— wait for it — when it was pointed out that these preborns were citizens, she said, “But they’re not born yet.”

Ah, yes, the old give ’em no prenatal care and kick the mothers off of assistance while they are pregnant and call this platform “prolife” because you deny personal choice to living, post-born women. This is one of the most hypocritical aspects of the allegedly “prolife” movement, but it’s a close call with their refusal to support the things that have been proven to actually reduce abortions, like education and access to birth control.

You would think that if people really wanted to reduce abortions, they’d back what has been proven to work. Since they don’t, they make their agenda pretty obvious. But for the obtuse, there’s their desire to deny prenatal care to expectant mothers, let alone feed post-born children. It is actually the prochoice crowd that is prolife, standing as they do for access to things that reduce the number of abortions but give pregnant women financial options to support their choice should they decide to carry to term. That’s what real “prolife” policy looks like in action.

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s Stand with Texas Women tour started at the Capitol in Austin on Tuesday and later headed into Houston where it was greeted by a crowd of 1,000 supporters.

“We are here because they refused to listen because we had thousands of people show up at the Texas Capitol who asked to be heard and were told no,” Davis said to crowds in Houston.

Texas Republicans don’t like to let women speak who won’t agree to shut up and have their health decisions and family planning dictated to them by state lawmakers and their Republican governor. Days ago, they had troopers haul Sarah Slamen out of the chamber for exercising her first amendment rights.

In Houston, Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood was accompanied by Senators Kirk Watson, Rodney Ellis, Sylvia Garcia, Jose Rodriguez, & Wendy Davis. Watch here:

http://youtu.be/KyE-eZUaMdY

Asked about her future plans, Senator Davis sidestepped the issue of whether or not she would run for governor, trying to keep the focus on women’s rights instead.

The Democratic filibustering heroine said, “When we have time to pull our head up from that and think about what the future looks like, I will give serious thought to that. But I can’t predict right now whether that will be a decision that’s right for me or that I believe will be right for the state of Texas.”

The Stand with Women tour is heading to San Antonio on Thursday.

Image: Star-Telegram