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First Word: Texas Gov. Rick Perry takes dig at Wendy Davis

Updated at 6:22pm ET
Governor Rick Perry addresses a large audience in attendance at the National Right To Life Convention on June 27, 2013, in Grapevine, Texas. (Photo by Tony Gutierrez/AP)
Governor Rick Perry addresses a large audience in attendance at the National Right To Life Convention on June 27, 2013, in Grapevine, Texas.

Updated at 6:22pm ET

Texas Gov. Rick Perry took a dig at state Senator Wendy Davis Thursday over her marathon filibuster to block an abortion bill. He suggested the Democrat "hasn’t learned from her own example" as a former teen mom.

“Even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances," Perry told the National Right to Life Conference. "She was the daughter of as single woman. She was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate. It’s just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential, and that every life matters.”

Vowing to pass tighter abortion measures, the right-wing governor called second special session for Monday, giving the GOP-controlled legislature more time to pass the bill.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Cecile Richards called governor’s comments “incredibly condescending and insulting to women." In an emailed statement to msnbc she said, “This is exactly why the vast majority of Texans believe that politicians shouldn’t be involved in a woman’s personal health care decisions. Women are perfectly capable of deciding whether to choose adoption, end a pregnancy, or raise a child, and they don’t need Rick Perry’s help making that decision.”

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