'By God, We Get Back Up': Talking With Wendy Davis About Public Service, Defeat, and Her Newest Project

In 2013, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis delivered an electrifying 13-hour filibuster against SB 5, the disastrous omnibus abortion bill that was eventually enacted and is now better known as HB 2. The bill has, as Davis warned, become a public health disaster for Texas women, and, in reaching the Supreme Court, has the potential to shape the future of abortion access in the United States, or the lack thereof.

The image of Davis—grave and dignified in a pair of pink sneakers, occasionally wiping away tears as she read hours of personal testimony from women across the state—is engraved in the public memory. She became an instant hero. In the weeks that followed, the rest of America learned what Texas had long known: that Davis was a certified badass, a young single mom who worked her way out of poverty and into Harvard Law, elected office, and history.