Gavin Jackson:
Well, it was definitely a unique day in the chamber.
But first I want to start by explaining how we got here, John. And we’ve been in our legislative session for six weeks now. This bill is going through the General Assembly. It was the first bill presented in the Senate, the first bill presented in the Senate, and then it had several hearings, went straight through the committee process, entered the Senate floor and went straight to the Chamber, where they also had the same type of committee process passed very quickly.
And the whole key here also in the Chamber was not to change this bill. Lawmakers wanted to get this to the governor’s table as soon as possible. So, we saw some controversy in the plenary yesterday between some Republicans, in fact, a Republican legislator, a marginal Republican legislator, who was a little upset because he was not able to – was not able to amend this bill that would eliminate the exceptions for rape and incest, because many Republican lawmakers want to go a step further with this bill.
But, of course, they would not have the support to do that. So, that was the middle ground. And you heard from the governor over there in that clip saying, hey, this is the first step. We can keep moving forward. Of course, this stage is still a little pending, depending on what is happening in the courts right now.
As you said, there is already a challenge in court. So, while abortions are now temporarily suspended in the state, that could – the injunction could be granted as early as tomorrow afternoon.