Check Out These Badasses!

[Content Note: War on agency.]

Women dressed as handmaids are protesting anti-abortion bills at the Capitol. #FightBackTX #txlege pic.twitter.com/w5EQfBqNtG

— PPTV (@PPTXVotes) March 20, 2017

2 DPS officers, Senate door guy & sergeant at arms have positioned themselves around a group of #handmaidstale activists in Senate #txlege pic.twitter.com/UC54ZlULQd

— Alexa Garcia-Ditta (@agarciaditta) March 20, 2017

Catherine Pearson at the Huffington Post: Women Wore 'Handmaid's Tale' Robes to the Texas Senate Floor.

On Monday, the Texas Senate considered several abortion-related bills, including Senate Bill 415, a regulation that would effectively ban a safe and common procedure used for second trimester abortions, which anti-choice legislators have taken to calling a "dismemberment abortion ban." It passed and will now head to the House.

The Senate also inched forward with SB 25 ― a bill that would effectively allow doctors to lie to pregnant [people] if they detect a fetal anomaly and are concerned their patients might opt for abortion. It will likely head for a final vote on the floor this week.

But in the Senate chambers on Monday, a group of Texas women were having none of it. The activists arrived decked out in full red robes, an homage to characters in "The Handmaid's Tale," Margaret Atwood's classic (and distressingly relevant) feminist tome.

Not all superheroes wear capes. BUT SOME DO.

Among the women who participated were two of my friends (whose identities I'm sharing with their permission): @meadowgirl and @ohthemaryd (who, as some of you may recall, has guest-posted at Shakesville on several occasions). These women are genuine badasses, and I am so proud to know them.

Looking at the pictures on social media of their visible but quiet protest, I got chills at the way their still, silent presence was like a haunting of the legislators conspiring to take away their rights.

They were specters and witnesses.

Republicans, we see you.