In an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, Texas state senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis rejected allegations that she falsified her account of two medically induced abortions she had in the 1990s, which she detailed in her recently released memoir "Forgetting to Be Afraid." Countering claims put forth by the right, Davis subtly asserted that the accounts are, unfortunately, painfully true.
“My family would give anything for this not to be a true story in our lives,” Davis said. “We would give anything for that.”
On Monday, the National Review called for Davis to "verify" the truth of her abortions, the first of which she disclosed publicly during her 11-hour filibuster of a highly restrictive antiabortion bill in 2013. Davis' second abortion, in 1997, occurred near the 20-week mark of her pregnancy, after the fetus developed a dangerous brain complication -- a reason the National Review referred to as "convenient" and "statistically unlikely."
The majority of health complications that endanger either the life of the fetus or mother (or both), however, are not discovered until the 20th week of pregnancy, or later. Additionally, as Davis has noted for herself, these stories are not "convenient," but rather difficult truths that make up the candidate's medical history -- a medical history that she would likely never be asked to "verify" otherwise.
When asked why she chose not to disclose both abortions during the filibuster, Davis responded to Maddow by saying she did not feel it was appropriate at the time. “I didn’t want to make that day be about me,” Davis said. “I wanted it to be about the thousands of women and their spouses or partners who supported them who had wanted so desperately for their voices to be heard.”
Watch Maddow's interview with Davis below:
(h/t Raw Story)
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