But that's just new legislation. As ABC News reports, around the country, several laws to restrict abortion went into effect this week, creating new barriers to access for women in five states.

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Thousands of demonstrators gathered to voice their opposition to the proposed abortion ban, many choosing to do so with a little levity.

A roundup of the best signs of the day:

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According to a report from the Associated Press, the Senate gallery was "full but calm" during the lightning-fast meeting.

Republicans have vowed to use the special legislative session to pass the restrictive abortion ban that state Sen. Wendy Davis and her Democratic colleagues defeated with a marathon filibuster last week, but that certainly didn't happen today.

Updated: 4:18 p.m.

The House is also adjourned until next week, but there will be a committee meeting held tomorrow.

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On Monday, Erickson posted a photo from the reproductive rights rally happening outside the Texas Capitol in advance of the legislature's special session, and asked if what he was seeing was "Salon's editorial board."

While we're flattered by the comparison, many of Erickson's Twitter followers were quick to point out his mistake.

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The second special session, called for by Gov. Rick Perry after the measure failed to pass in the previous session, will begin Monday at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. ET) and could last up to 30 days.

The bill is expected to pass in the Republican-controlled Legislature, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who supports the measure, told the Dallas Morning News on Saturday that the second session leaves little hope for a successful filibuster: “We’re not going to get it back from the House within filibuster range,” Dewhurst said. “We’re going to make sure that we’ve got plenty of time, and no human being can talk for two weeks.”

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Davis also accused Republican politicians in the state of using the legislation for political gain. “Politicians are using this issue to boost their own political aspirations, their own political ambitions, and they are bullying women and their liberties, their personal, constitutionally guaranteed liberties in the process,” she said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Davis's filibuster prevented the legislation, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, from passing the legislature last week. But Gov. Rick Perry has called a special session, which begins on Monday, in order to get it passed. This time, the bill is expected to make it through.

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The Wendy Davis filibuster in Texas? The Supreme Court decision on DOMA? The immigration bill passing in the Senate? All of them were achievements by ordinary citizens who got involved and affected elections. These things didn’t just happen. They were the real outcomes of citizens voting, in contests that could have gone the other way just as easily.

The United States is an enormous nation, with an enormously complex political system – one that puts no one in charge, but instead relies on separated institutions sharing powers, federalism, and all sorts of other complications. As a result, it’s very difficult, most of the time, to see obvious links between a specific election and a specific outcome. Yes, every once in a while there’s an obvious consequence: no 2008 Democratic landslide, no Affordable Care Act. But frustration is far more common in the Madisonian system.

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"Once you move marriage beyond the scope of a man and a woman, you really don't end up with a good place to put a limit," Gohmert, R-Texas, said, adding: "I think polygamy is wrong, bigamy is wrong, and it's a crime in many places -- but how will that be justifiable now that the court has removed this? There's some [who] believe polygamy is a way to go."

h/t the Huffington Post.

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Her steadfastness for women's rights has already spawned an Internet meme, nail art and now people are taking to Amazon to review the shoes made famous during her stand:

Men, do not try these on!, by Joshua Jones

I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals. They started explaining reproduction to me like I was a seventh grader. Unfortunately, being male, I had no way to shut the whole thing down. I'm so confused...

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“Who are we to say that children born into the worst of circumstances can’t grow to live successful lives?” Perry asked the crowd.

Turning the life story of a fierce abortion rights defender into fodder for a polemic about undermining women's rights may seem like an odd choice to many (Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards called it "incredibly condescending and insulting to women" in a statement), but the crowd of antiabortion activists roared their approval as Perry continued:

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Davis spoke with Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night about the experience of standing and speaking for 11 hours straight ("I underestimated how difficult it would be") and what the Texas legislative showdown could mean for the future of reproductive rights in Texas -- and democracy in the United States:

I think the most important thing we accomplished is we empowered the voice of people in Texas -- people who wanted to stand against this big government intrusion to their personal lives and liberty... What I think this is has done is empower people to understand that when they involve themselves in a democracy they truly can make a difference. They made a difference in the Texas Capitol yesterday, and I think this will linger, Anderson. I think that even if this bill passes in this next called special session, the reaction to it won't be a partisan one; it's a reaction coming from Republicans,, Independents and Democrats alike, which is saying: Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, stay out of my private decision making.

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I certainly think that voting rights and women’s rights activism ought to converge in Texas to make sure Davis keeps her seat, if she wants it. But Wednesday night I began to dream there might be an even better test for those two movements: Backing Davis in a run against Texas’s forgetful, pandering far-right Gov. Rick Perry.

Personally I thought Perry shamed himself with his slapdash run for president, but lots of people think it made him stronger at least on the right. Whatever. It certainly made national Democrats more aware of what Texans are living with. Wendy Davis’ filibuster made us more aware of the state’s progressive promise.

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Davis' stand was so inspiring that at one point, 150,000 people tuned in to watch the proceedings live on YouTube. The hashtag #standwithWendy trended on Twitter, and lo, an Internet meme was born:

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As reported by Zachary Roth at MSNBC, Davis was one of many candidates -- and tens of thousands of Texas voters -- impacted by Republican redistricting efforts in 2011:

The GOP plan radically changed the demographic makeup of Davis’ district, among others, moving tens of thousands of black and Hispanic voters into neighboring districts. In fact, of the 94 precincts that were over 70% minority, Republicans cut out 48. In the new map, blacks and Hispanics were placed in separate districts from each other and were outnumbered by the white conservative majority, which tends to vote Republican.

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It also garnered her a pretty fancy group of new fans on Twitter.

A roundup:

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The measure would have banned abortion at 20 weeks and imposed restrictions on physicians and abortion facilities that would have shuttered 37 of the state's 42 abortion clinics, making access to the procedure virtually impossible, advocates say.

According to reports from the Austin-American Statesman and the Associated Press, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst prematurely halted Davis' filibuster after ruling that her discussion of mandatory ultrasound testing was "not germane" to the bill and in violation of Senate rules; Davis was removed from the floor and pandemonium erupted. Davis' Democratic colleagues who opposed the bill attempted to debate why forced ultrasounds were relevant to the bill under consideration, and a group of reproductive rights advocates observing the filibuster rushed the floor, chanting "Let her speak!" and "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

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According to the Texas Tribune, Governor Rick Perry has overseen the executions of 261 people since he assumed office in 2000. "Perry has rarely used his power to grant clemency, granting 31 death row commutations, most of them — 28 — the result of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning capital punishment for minors."

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Original post:

In a better world, the discussion of sonograms would not be at all germane to proposed new antiabortion legislation, because the two issues would have nothing to do with one another. But since Texas, like many other states, recently passed a requirement that women get a sonogram before obtaining an abortion, it made perfect sense that state Sen. Wendy Davis would talk about the way SB 5, the state’s proposed new abortion restrictions, might relate to the earlier sonogram law.

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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that the state will now move ahead with a law requiring photo ID before voting, since it no longer has to get pre-clearance from the Department of Justice to implement it. “With today’s decision, the State’s voter ID law will take effect immediately,” Abbott said in a statement to the Dallas Morning News. “Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”

The law will go into effect on Thursday. From the Morning News:

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