Stand for Life rally at the Texas Capitol
Patrick Michels

Rhapsody in Blue: “Stand For Life” Rally Draws Righteous Abortion Foes

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Patrick Michels

Above: Stand for Life rally at the Texas Capitol in support of new abortion restrictions Monday night.

While a Senate committee heard testimony on a bill placing major new limits on abortion in Texas, the bill’s blue-shirted supporters gathered last night on the Capitol’s south steps.

The “Stand For Life” rally was meant as a show of strength for Senate Bill 1’s backers who are, after all, the ones with the Legislature stacked in their favor. They’ve got the power, but it’s the bill’s opponents who’ve camped out, rallied and wielded the power of the almighty Internet to their advantage over the last few weeks.

“Let’s make this the biggest rally ever!” urged the rally’s promoters, and though they fell a bit short of that unlikely bar, many in the crowd were able to walk away with autographed photos of the famed Arkansas Duggars of 19 Kids and Counting.

Michelle Duggar, a “Young Mother of the Year Award” winner even before all of those 19 kids arrived, struck a typical note for the night when she worried repeatedly about America’s “baby Holocaust” without ever losing her quiet, folksy cool.

On the moral high ground, with victory a mathematical certainty, there is no need to yell too loud or bang the drums too hard (which a large pro-choice crowd did, again, last night in a march that left the Capitol during the Rally for Life). “They think we’re the radicals… No, they’re the radicals!” one woman told the crowd. In the audience, people waved crosses and held giant shock photos of aborted fetuses. “This isn’t a fringe crowd, this is mainstream America,” another woman told them.

Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) introduced the night’s big speaker, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, as “a man of God” and “a really, really nice man.” Huckabee reminded the crowd of the national significance of passing a 20-week abortion ban, along with other major restrictions. “The eyes of America are on Texas,” he told them.

A patch of orange-clad opponents got glares for shouting down some speakers, and a few of them engaged the anti-choice crowd in debates over whose convictions were the right ones—but most of the rally had a prayerful, satisfied air fitting for a group convinced they’re in the right and certain to win.

Rep. Jodie Laubenberg and Sen. Glenn Hegar
Rep. Jodie Laubenberg and Sen. Glenn Hegar, authors of bills that would place major restrictions on abortion access, speak to a supportive crowd.  Patrick Michels

Anxious for a chance to remind the crowd of that, Texas officials crowded behind the podium waiting turns to speak. Inside the House and Senate chambers, “the health of the woman” is all the justification lawmakers seem to need for these bills. But out here, they cut right to the good stuff: saving babies and defeating those who would do the Dark Lord’s bidding.

“God is the God of life, not death,” Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R-Parker) said, “and we are on the right side.”

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst professed his love for those who disagreed with him. One dissenter shouted “fascist!” as he explained that “as Christians, we love you just as much as we love that unborn baby.

Satan was a particularly unpopular character in this crowd, and Attorney General Greg Abbott was one of many who reminded them, seriously, of the “Hail Satan” chant aimed at the bill’s religious supporters during last Tuesday’s House committee hearing.

Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas ran the furthest with it, of course. “Some of them have been here chanting in the Capitol, ‘Hail to Satan, hail to Satan, hail to Satan,” he said tonight. “Anyone who opposes this bill, whether he realizes it or not, is a tool of Satan.”