The story at the Associated Press this morning on the Texas Senate's passage of legislation which, as summarized at Life News, "would ban abortions after 20 weeks and hold abortion clinics accountable by making them meet basic health and safety standards," claims to originate from Austin, the Lone Star State's capital city.
The coverage by AP reporters Chris Tomlinson and Will Weissert has references to events occurring at the "the Capitol building in Austin," so I have to believe that one, the other, or both were present during the hours leading up to the bill's passage. It is thus hard to believe that the gentlemen only reported on one of the following ugly incidents in a long list compiled by Life News in an email I received this morning. The AP pair also did not note President Barack Obama's tweet in support of the protesters' grisly cause.
Here is the listing in the Life News email (some extraneous words have been deleted):
Links:
- (not in graphic above) Texas Senate Passes Bill to Ban Late-Term Abortions Despite Abortion Mob
- (not in graphic above) Pro-Abortion Mob Threatens Pro-Lifers Inside the Texas Legislature
- Texas Police Confiscate Jars of Urine, Feces From Abortion Activists
- Texas Abortion Activists Plan to Throw Tampons, Pads at Legislators
- Teen Girl Holds Sign: “Jesus Isn’t a D—, Keep Him Out of My Vagina” (photo of actual poster is at link)
- Abortion Activists Boo Texas Pro-Lifers Singing “God Bless America”
- Abortion Activists Threaten to Flash Their Lady Parts at Texas Capitol
- Texas Democratic Party Chair Caught Lying About Late-Term Abortion Ban
- Texas Abortion Activist to Pro-Life Legislator: I Want to “Pummel His Face In”
- Texas Abortion Activists Complain It’s Too Expensive to Protect Women’s Health
Here is how Tomlinson and Weissert covered the protesters' actions (numbered tags are mine):
TEXAS REPUBS PASS ABORTION BILL, DEMS VOW FIGHT [1]
... More than 2,000 demonstrators [2] filled the Capitol building in Austin to oppose the bill, and state troopers drug six out of the Senate chamber for trying to disrupt the debate. The Republican majority ultimately passed the bill unchanged just before midnight, with all but one Democrat voting against it.
... the measure has also sparked protests in Texas not seen in least 20 years, with thousands of abortion rights supporters flooding the Capitol to draw out normally boring committee hearings and disrupting key votes. Protesters finished a filibuster started by Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth by jeering for the last 15 minutes of the first special session, effectively killing the bill.
That's when Perry called lawmakers back for round two. But opponents said the fight is far from over and used the popular anger to register and organize Democratic voters. [3]
"Let's make sure that tonight is not an ending point, it's a beginning point for our future, our collective futures, as we work to take this state back." Davis told 2,000 adoring supporters [4] after the bill passed.
... Friday's debate took place between a packed gallery of demonstrators, with anti-abortion activists wearing blue and abortion-rights supporters wearing orange. Security was tight, and state troopers reported confiscating bottles of urine and feces [5] as they worked to prevent another attempt to stop the Republican majority from passing the proposal.
Those arrested or removed from the chamber included four women who tried to chain themselves to a railing in the gallery while singing, "All we are saying is give choice a chance." One of the women was successful in chaining herself, prompting a 10-minute recess.
Notes:
[1] -- "Repubs"? That's a hostile term used by Democrats which almost never appears in headlines. A search of the most recent 100 items in the Google News archive on ["Associated Press" Repubs] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets in an advanced search requiring the exact term "Repubs") going back to 2007 returned only one in which "Repubs" appeared in the headline -- and that was a Wall Street Journal Best of the Web item from 2010 which quoted a memo from then-Supreme Court nominee Elaine Kagan claiming that a court ruling allowing soft money donations "affects Repubs, not Dems!" Instances where "Repubs" appears in inidividual result descriptions appear to be there because of readers' comments and not because the term was in the reports themselves. "GOP" takes up less space, AP. You have no excuse for such unprofessionalism. Update, July 13: The headline at what appears to be a virtually unchanged version of the story time-stamped Sunday at 7 p.m. is now: "TEXAS REPUBLICANS FINALLY PASS NEW ABORTION LIMITS"
[2] -- 2,000? We're supposed to be impressed? Gosh, in 2011, press reports indicated that "Tens of thousands of people have jammed the Capitol since last week to protest" Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's public-sector union-related legislation. If the unrestricted "right" to kill a pre-born baby is such a big deal, why couldn't the highly organized left get more that 2,000 people there? And of those who were there, how many were paid to be there, as has been the case in previous Texas Capitol protests?
[3] -- Again, where is the "popular anger"? As Life News noted in its headlines ("Planned Parenthood Forced to Cancel Texas Bus Tour Stop, Lack of Enthusiasm"; not included in graphic above), "the 'road rage' bus tour kicked off by angry Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards four days ago is ending tonight with a whimper. Organizers have cancelled the last stop." This entire protest enterprise is from all appearances a ginned-up fraud from top to bottom.
[4] -- "Adoring supporters"? Biased much, guys?
[5] -- At least the AP noted this situation, but made sure to say that it was only something reported by state troopers. They also noted the chaining incident, which Life News did not specifically headline. But they sure missed a lot of other incidents -- or decided not to report them. Update, July 15: A BizzyBlog commenter accurately pointed out that the report didn't directly tag proaborts as the ones carrying feces and urine, though it could be inferred from trooper's working "to prevent another attempt to stop the Republican majority from passing the proposal."
Early this morning, President Barack Obama tweeted that his sympathies are with those in the feces-and-urine crowd and those who use their teenaged daughters as obscene props at the supposedly arms-length, independent (cough, cough) Organizing for Action web site (HT PJ Tatler):
That's also not the AP report, which has a time stamp almost six hours later than Obama's tweet.
Insert your own "if anyone associated with any conservative cause had done anything even remotely similar" double standard description here.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
