They baptized the body and cried, according to the report. Davis writes about ending pregnancy

Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate who vaulted to political stardom after a well-publicized filibuster of anti-abortion legislation, writes in her upcoming memoir that she terminated a pregnancy, according to a new report.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, Davis’ book, “Forgetting to Be Afraid,” describes an incident 17 years ago in her second trimester in which she learned that her unborn third daughter — whom she and her then-husband already named Tate Elise — had a serious brain abnormality that appeared potentially life-threatening.


After determining that the baby was “suffering,” Davis and her husband decided to end the pregnancy. They baptized the body and cried, according to the report.

( Also on POLITICO: Key part of Texas abortion law halted)

“An indescribable blackness followed,” Davis writes, according to the account. “It was a deep, dark despair and grief, a heavy wave that crushed me, that made me wonder if I would ever surface … and when I finally did come through it, I emerged a different person. Changed. Forever changed.”

The report noted that she has previously disclosed another pregnancy that was terminated for medical reasons.

Planned Parenthood Votes president Cecile Richards, daughter of the late former Texas gov. Ann Richards, said in a statement: “Throughout her career, Wendy Davis has fought for women and families with the same unwavering courage she’s displayed today in sharing her deeply personal decision to have an abortion. While no woman should have to justify her decision, abortion later in pregnancy is rare, and is often due to the same sort of tragic and heartbreaking circumstance that Wendy experienced - the kind of situation where a woman and her doctor need every medical option available.”

Davis, who is running for governor against state Attorney General Greg Abbott, catapulted into the spotlight in the summer of 2013 by waging a filibuster that temporarily derailed a restrictive abortion bill. While she has refrained from making abortion rights the central theme of her uphill campaign in deep-red Texas, it’s the issue that made her a national name.

The book goes on sale to the public next week.