Perry said the Legislature would convene July 1 in special session to take up the abortion bill, which was declared dead before dawn Wednesday. The bill failed after a night of drama in Austin during which a lone lawmaker talked for more than 10 hours in an attempt to run out the clock on a special session.
Chants of "shame! shame! shame!" from spectators who had filled the building drowned out the efforts of Republican lawmakers as they tried to pass it minutes before midnight.
"We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do," Perry said in a statement calling lawmakers back into another special session. Texans "value life and want to protect women and the unborn," he said.....
The bill would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and tightened standards on abortion clinics and the doctors who work at them. Critics said the measure would have shut most of the abortion clinics in Texas.
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