Members of the Texas House gave preliminary approval late Thursday to a controversial bill that would require a woman to get a sonogram before an abortion.
Lawmakers voted 103-42 to move toward a final vote.
The bill must now be reconciled with a less stringent Senate version, which the House rejected during Thursday's debate.
Democrats had derailed the bill on a technicality Wednesday before much of the debate began. When the discussion resumed Thursday, Democrats stretched out the debate into the night with a series of amendments, even as many Democrats said they knew Republicans had the votes to pass it.
Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston , offered the first of several amendments on Thursday, which sought to gut the bill's language.
Making her point that the bill would invade a woman's privacy, Alvarado waved a wand-like instrument that would be inserted into a woman's vagina as part of one type of sonogram. "This is government intrusion at an all-time high," she said."
Alvarado said the bill is really about shaming and humiliating a woman in hopes that the sonogram would prompt anyone considering an abortion not to get one. ...Statesman
One desperate Democrat (f) tried to insert an amendment that would require the prospective father to undergo a vasectomy. The Republican supermajority canned that one right fast... According to one account, "While the latest version of the house bill requires a doctor to present that information to the patient, the woman can turn her head and refuse to listen. One GOP rep suggested they use headphones."
Just charms the heck out of you, doesn't it? Makes you want to go to barbecue this evening with Bubba Longhorn and drink a few, right? Maybe not too safe if you're a woman. Texas men do not (in spite of what they pretend) like women.
