Because of Roe v. Wade’s end, states are finally able to fully protect preborn Life for the first time in nearly fifty years. Thankfully, Texas was already boldly leading the Pro-Life movement with the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act. To date the Texas Heartbeat Act has saved over 30,000 precious children from abortion since taking effect last September. For years now, brave Texas cities have been taking a stand to defend their most vulnerable citizens by passing Sanctuary City for the Unborn (SCU) ordinances.
Now that abortion is completely outlawed in Texas, even more cities are taking sides in abortion debate.
In June of 2019, Waskom, Texas, became the first Sanctuary City for the Unborn by passing a carefully crafted and fully enforceable Pro-Life measure. The passage of the ordinance was not just symbolic of the community’s respect for innocent preborn Life, but was actually immediately enforceable, allowing private lawsuits to be brought against anyone who committed or assisted in an abortion within city limits. Since then, over forty other Texas towns have passed this enforceable measure. The largest of these being Lubbock, where the SCU ordinance actually stopped an active Planned Parenthood from committing abortions within the city!
This protective measure is most efficient when passed by city councils. Several Texas city councils are currently considering the SCU ordinance. Still, where the city councils fail to take a stand such as in Abilene, San Angelo, Athens, and Plainview, thousands of ordinary Pro-Life citizens have gone through the initiative process to place the ordinance on their town’s ballot for a citizen vote in November.
The SCU ordinances are important, even after Roe’s end, because they transform cities into safe havens for mothers and their preborn children, regardless of the current or future federal and state political climates, and provide additional law enforcement tools to cities.
Tragically, in direct opposition to the valiant efforts of these Pro-Life cities, several larger cities across the state have begun declaring themselves “abortion safe havens,” attempting to subvert Pro-Life state laws. The Texas cities that have passed these unenforceable pro-abortion measures are Austin, Denton, and most recently Dallas. Proponents of these measures are misleadingly calling them the Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone Act (GRACE). Other cities like San Antonio are passing even weaker, purely symbolic resolutions declaring the city’s support for the abortion industry.
Because cities cannot override state law, these anti-Life measures seem to be more political theater than anything substantive. However, these anti-Life city councils are using the measures to advise their police departments to deprioritize enforcing Texas Pro-Life laws and promote the use of tax dollars to cover city employees’ abortion travel expenses. Though these anti-Life resolutions and ordinances presently seem unenforceable, it is disturbing to see city councils perpetuate abortion propaganda to the detriment of women and communities and the utter destruction of innocent preborn children.
The complete hypocrisy of city councils pretending to stand for women while advocating for abortion could not be more obvious. City councils wishing to help women and families in this historic time could expand access to adoption, make foster care safer, and improve pregnant and parenting resources for mothers and families, like those typically offered at pregnancy resource centers.
Cities that wish to stand with women should consider working to incentivize schools, universities, and workplaces to be more pregnant and parent-friendly. City councils that wish to protect the vulnerable and defenseless should consider passing the Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance rather than anti-Life resolutions that ignore the most defenseless within their communities.
As Councilman Adam McGough, the lone Dallas city council member brave enough to vote against the anti-Life resolution, said, “I cannot imagine anyone more vulnerable than the unborn.”
For the first time in nearly 50 years Texas cities have the freedom to actually protect preborn children from the moment their DNA is formed and that unique little person comes into existence. Texans, now is the time! Let us joyfully choose compassion rather than hatred, hope rather than fear, and Life rather than death.
