Wendy Davis, Woman Warrior

"A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure where debate is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is sometimes referred to as talking out a bill,^[1] and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body."

"Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.^[1] "


History has been made in Texas for the sake of women all over the country. A new precedent has been set. On the morning of June 25, 2013, Senator Wendy Davis (D) of Texas took a stand. A stand that lasted 11 hours. A stand that means that the welfare of the women of Texas remains intact.

Senate bill 5 proposed that all abortion clinics include a mandatory ambulatory surgery center, and banned most abortions past 20 weeks. While my views on the cap of a gestational age for abortion differ, I vehemently decry the attempt to take away the rights of women who want or need something that disagrees with my personal view. Senate bill 5 would have closed most of the abortion clinics in Texas. Senate bill 5 would have, in all likeliness, driven women to drastic, dangerous methods of termination, especially in rural areas where access to abortion as it is currently is extremely limited.

Pink sneakers. While that is not the most memorable part of the 11 hour ordeal, Senator Davis' pink sneakers stand out. She wore them in preparation for a 13 hour ordeal, in an attempt to stay comfortable during the filibuster where she would not be allowed food or drink, to lean, to sit, or to ask for help in any way. At one point, she requested assistance of another senator in putting on a back brace in order to remain standing. The senate angrily voted that this was in violation, and the motion was upheld. That was her second of three allowable warnings before the senate could vote to end the filibuster as a result of straying off topic. The senate failed.

There were many remarkable words spoken last night. Leticia Van De Putte's statement of "At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?" and  chants of "Let Her Speak!" from the gallery, crowded with spectators, echo over and over in the media and in our hearts and heads.

Senator Davis' filibuster was muddled in the last few hours due to an unclear ruling on a third warning and subsequent confusing and possibly illegal tactics by the Senate, but in what is being called a "People's Filibuster," the spectating crowd erupted into such a roar of chaos that the vote was delayed long enough to kill the bill and kill the potentially deadly consequences it would carry.

Senator Davis did it. She took a literal stand for the women of Texas, and with the nationwide support, she set a precedent not only for her own state, but for all states as well.

She set a precedent that clearly states that women deserve the right to safety and choice. She set a precedent that will follow us today to our daughters tomorrow, and to our granddaughters after them. As long as women like Wendy Davis and Leticia Van De Putte and you and I continue to fight, to continue to stand our ground, we will keep our sisters and our daughters and their daughters after them safe. We will continue to ensure that they have the RIGHT to safe medical procedures without oppressive , superfluous stipulations that cause undue duress to the woman seeking the procedure, which include things such as repeated sonograms during which the patient must observe the screen prior to the procedure, and laws that require the patient to observe the fetal heartbeat before the procedure begins. We will continue to prevent laws that ban medical abortions in favor of surgical ones, and vice versa. Laws that state that women pregnant only due to rape or incest are allowed abortions, and worse laws that state that no woman, including those pregnant due to rape and incest, are allowed abortions.

Senator Wendy Davis proved last night that we, as a united front of sisters, are done fucking around. Get your laws off of our bodies and out of our uteri.

Please take a moment to let the enormity of this win sink in. Once it has, call Wendy.  Call her with your story, call her with your thanks. Call her to let her know that you stood with her last night, and that she was not alone.

Feminism in my life.

"Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.^[1][2] This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment." -Wikipedia

I think feminism may have been bred into me. I was born to a single, 20 year old woman, who was determined to make her way through college and make a life for us. She did that. She struggled through school with a toddler to get her Bachelor's in science, and then she went out into the world and made a name for herself. She now has two Master's degrees and is the head of a nationally recognized biotechnology program at a local college.

This post isn't about my mother, though.

This post is about me, and how being a feminist affects every single decision I make in life. This post is about how I've bred feminism into my own children, both my daughter and my son. This post is about what feminism means to me.

As a rebellious teenager, I defined feminism as being able to run around and do what I wished, date however many men I wanted, and have my world on a plate with no social repercussions. I bought myself birth control, and I worked a job where my co-workers were predominantly male. The misogynists I knew called me an undisciplined slut. I disagreed. I still disagree. 

As I've matured, so have my views on feminism. Sure, I still believe all those things above, but I also believe that I don't have to be the bra-burning rebel I was back then. I can be a feminist and create change in much more subtle ways.

When pregnant with my daughter, I was convinced originally that I would have an abortion. It felt like having her would be untrue to my feminist roots. Then I made the choice to keep her. For a long time I felt guilty about that, like I had let down all the other feminists in the world by not exercising my right to an abortion. Then I had the epiphany that I did just the opposite - I used my power of choice. The day that dawned on me, many other things became clear. Things like the fact that I could also make the choice to be a stay-at-home mom, or a part time work-out-of-home mom without feeling like I was betraying my fellow women.

Like I said, these days I'm a bit more subtle. I don't attend as many rallies as I used to, but I donate to NOW and other women's rights organizations. I fight against female genital mutilation in countries and religions where it's still practiced. I do what I can to help support the ending of the sex trade and domestic abuse. I teach my children that women are people too. My daughter has a firm grasp on the fact that she can and will be whatever and whomever she wants and I'll stand by her 100%. My son, while only three, nurtures his baby dolls, enjoys having his nails painted, and is unafraid to play dress-up. I will continue to teach him that women are his equals, in all ways.

Feminism to me means that I'm unafraid to reach for the stars, and I'm unafraid to instill that in my children, as well. Feminism means that I'm a whole person.

Kermit Gosnell, from a pro-choice perspective.

I know that many of my readers are here for my pretty makeup, my updates on my kids, information and camaraderie for those of us with special needs children, and the social/political pieces I do once in a while.  You're not going to find that today.  Today you're going to find the nitty-gritty and controversial. Today you're going to find outrage.

I am staunchly pro-choice. I'm liberal, I'm feminist, I'm pro-choice. I believe abortion should be legal and safe for every woman who may need one.

I'm conservative only in my belief that there should be an early cap on the gestational age of the fetus being aborted.

A human embryo becomes a fetus at approximately nine weeks of gestational age, and remains labeled so until approximately 20 weeks of gestational age, or when the fetus may be viable outside the womb. It is estimated that a fetus can feel pain as early as 18 weeks of gestational age.

Personally, I feel that abortions performed past 14 weeks of gestational age are too late.

Kermit Gosnell and his staff disagreed.

Dr. Gosnell, if we can refer to him as a physician (because he certainly didn't uphold the Hippocratic oath,) performed abortions as late as 26 weeks confirmed, with abortions as late as 30 weeks a strong possibility.

I'm not going to go into gory details. I'm not going to post public photos of the terminated infants, or tell you HOW he terminated them once they were delivered. (I use the term infants, because many of the bodies recovered were of viable babies, had they been delivered in a hospital setting with neonatal support services.) I'm not going to go into the details of his "trophies," his "disposal" methods, or his clinic conditions.

I am, however, going to tell you that as a pro-choice, liberal feminist, I am horrified.

I am horrified that he was able to convince his employees that this was alright. I am horrified that he made jokes about the infants he euthanized. Because really, that's what it came down to.  It was not abortion in most cases. It was cold-blooded euthanasia. Infanticide. Serial murder, complete with trophies from his victims.

The trial against this man, this monster, commenced on my birthday. In addition to being horrified by the events that led to this trial, I am horrified by the accusations being hurled regarding the lack of media coverage. Glen Beck asserts that the "liberal media" refused to cover the trial because they didn't feel that there was any wrong done. He referred to this monstrosity as "Margaret Sanger's dream come true."

None of that is correct. This is not what Margaret Sanger envisioned when she fought to make birth control available to all women who needed it. This is not what the supporters of Roe vs. Wade envisioned when they fought to have the legality of abortions upheld. This is not what any pro-choice, or even pro-abortion advocate envisioned. This is a crime against humanity.

I postulate that the media has been notably silent due to the complex nature of this atrocity. How does one approach such a thing rapidly with the aplomb required by a media outlet? The emotions evoked in anyone who has knowledge of this case does not lead to self-assured, unbiased reporting.

I know *I* have been silent for those reasons. Even formulating coherency in this post has taken me hours, and taken me through an exhaustive range of emotions. I cannot imagine how reporters who are dedicated to bringing the truth in a manner devoid of emotion are coping, especially now that there is public outcry over their inaction until this point.

Like I said, this is a human rights violation. This is a serial killer we're talking about. About the only thing that could have made this entire scenario more abhorrent would be charges of cannibalism on top of it all.

So no, I don't fault the media for being silent, any more than I fault myself for not having chosen to speak up until now.

I place the blame where it belongs, on the man who committed these sins, these evils. I blame him for shocking us into silence, into heartache, into an impotent rage over the injustice done to these women and these babies.

Remember, this is not a case of choice, this is a case of murder.