The great Texas abortion battle

Expect the Unexpected

By GAIL COLLINS, NYT

Every once in a while, something happens that challenges your entire view of the order of the universe. For instance, this week the U.S. Senate actually passed something. Meanwhile, in Texas, liberal Democrats and the abortion rights movement won a huge political victory.

If we keep this up, soon we will hear that in Africa, migrating herds of wildebeests stopped moving and began settling into trailer parks.

Let’s take a look at Texas, where the now-famous 11-hour filibuster by State Senator Wendy Davis defeated a major anti-abortion bill, lifted the long-dead spirit of the state’s Democrats and created many news articles in which the word “thrilling” was coupled with “state senate.”

The next day, however, Gov. Rick Perry announced that he was calling a new special session to take up the bill again.

“We Democrats are strategizing,” Davis said in a phone interview, declining to go into details.

(More here.)