Let Her Speak: Transcript of Texas Sate Senator Wendy Davis's June 25, 2013, Filibuster of the Texas State Senate

Literary Nonfiction. History. On June 25, 2013, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis filibustered the Texas State Senate to prevent the passage of a law essentially intended to restrict access to abortion in Texas. Reading aloud from a lengthy prepared text, she was able to thwart an overwhelmingly Republican, white male majority that many believe is intent on limiting the constitutional right to an abortion to the point of de facto annihilation. With LET HER SPEAK, Counterpath presents, for the first time in print, the complete transcript of the filibuster, from Senator Davis's first words on the Senate floor, to the point where it was decided by the Senate President that she could no longer continue. It is a document alive with American history, the struggle of women to carve out basic human rights, and a heroic 11-hour effort—Davis literally standing in one place, speaking, reading, and arguing with other Senators—that infiltrates the timed machinations of the law with the defiant text of one of the most important political movements of our times.