The City Council of Austin voted to pay for abortion travel, forcing taxpayers to fund the deaths of preborn babies.
On August 14, the Austin City Council approved its budget for fiscal year 2025. The delineation allocates $500,000 to a “Reproductive Health-Logistical Support” fund, which will send tax dollars to criminal pro-abortion groups that aid and abet illegal and out-of-state abortions.
The fund would even pay for a companion to travel with the woman seeking an abortion. Wednesday’s measure additionally criticizes Texas’ Pro-Life laws, which save an average of 100 preborn Texans per day.
San Antonio City Council approved a similar budget item last year that immediately landed the government in a lawsuit from local citizens and Texas Right to Life. Although San Antonio has not yet distributed the funding, officials repeatedly discussed sending money to anti-Life groups that directly pay for or aid in abortions.
It is unclear how exactly the Austin City Council plans to allocate the “Reproductive Health-Logistical Support” funding. Importantly, it is a crime to donate money to organizations that “procure” out-of-state abortions. Any individual or government entity that gives to these groups becomes complicit in their criminal acts.
The City of Austin has a history of using taxpayer dollars to promote abortion. Austin leases a public property valued at $2 million to Planned Parenthood for just $1 per year. Council members also slashed police funding in 2020 and redirected much of that money to the abortion industry. The city additionally passed an unenforceable resolution to “decriminalize abortion” in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Austin should not pay to kill its own innocent citizens, and taxpayers should not be forced to participate. Instead, the city should help new mothers by supporting pregnancy resource centers so that women have the assistance needed to deliver and care for their children.