Texas city Lubbock bans almost all abortions
Declaring Lubbock a “sanctuary city” for the unborn, voters have approved a local ban on almost all abortions and the Texas legislature is considering a law to bar the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
Lubbock, home to about 260,000 people, is the 25th such sanctuary city — all but two in Texas — to have banned abortions in the past two years.
Drucilla Tigner, a policy and advocacy strategist for ACLUTexas (American Civil Liberties Union), said most other towns that had passed similar sanctuary city measures had populations of a few hundred or thousand, and often had no medical providers, let alone one that offered abortions, as Lubbock did.
The Lubbock ordinance bans abortion in all cases except when a woman’s life is in danger.
It also allows family members of any woman who has an abortion to sue the provider or anyone who assisted the woman in receiving an abortion.
Nearly 63% of votes cast in the May 1 election supported the measure, the county elections office said on Monday. The turnout was 22.6%. The measure is expected to take effect once the official tally is complete, which could take up to a month.
The ACLU said on Monday it was weighing legal measures, calling the Lubbock vote unconstitutional and detrimental to women’s health.
The organisation has sued other “sanctuary cities” in Texas in a case that awaits a ruling.
Lubbock is a medical hub for a million people in west Texas.
The ordinance “has a huge impact on not just the people of Lubbock, but that entire region”, Tigner said.
Planned Parenthood, which in 2020 reopened a clinic in Lubbock, said in a written statement that it “will follow legal restrictions as required”.
A woman’s right to have an abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy was protected nationally in 1973, after the Supreme Court’s landmark 7-2 ruling in Roe vs Wade.
Abortion fights at local level have heated up since the court attained a 6-3 conservative majority under former US president Donald Trump.
If Roe vs Wade is overturned, abortion would be governed by state and local law.
Jim Baxa, whose West Texas for Life was among the organisations that got the ordinance before voters, said his bigger goal was to see Texas ban abortions at state level.
Baxa said West Texas for Life got the sanctuary city idea after seeing similar measures pass in east Texas two years ago.
After the Lubbock city council unanimously rejected the measure as violating state and federal law, West Texas for Life collected enough petition signatures to force a vote.
The Texas Senate in March approved five bills restricting abortion, including one that would ban it as soon as a foetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks in some pregnancies.
The Texas House is expected to take up the measures later this week.