Texas activists defeat local effort to restrict abortion access
Amarillo was one of dozens of cities that the antiabortion movement had targeted with sanctuary laws.
(Activists in Amarillo, Texas, campaigned against a proposed law that would have permitted lawsuits against people who helped women get abortions. Taken from the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance’s Instagram page.)
Texas activists won a significant victory that will prevent a local government from enacting an ordinance that would criminalize traveling on the area’s roads to get an abortion.
The Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance spearheaded an effort in that town to shoot down the travel ban, which was an abortion trafficking ordinance that would have allowed other residents to sue someone who helped a woman get an abortion. Lindsay London, co-founder of the alliance, spoke with me about their campaign.
“What we found through our community organizing is that even if folks did hold an anti-abortion sentiment, many of them are also against government overreach, and that's exactly what that ordinance did,” London said.
“And so we were able to be successful in our organization within more conservative communities by anchoring into those tenets of personal privacy, freedom and limiting government interference.”
The proposed ordinance was part of the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement, which started to enact limitations on using local roads to travel for reproductive care. Right to Life of East Texas Director Mark Lee Dickson began the campaign with a website listing all the areas signed on. Dickson has partnered with church groups and targeted wealthier areas.
In 1983, the Supreme Court heard Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health. Five years earlier, city council members in Akron passed ordinances that changed abortion laws. The most controversial provisions of the ordinances were that a woman had to tell her husband or parents when she planned on having an abortion. Doctors had to inform them that the fetus had human features and that terminating a pregnancy might cause her psychological problems. And women had to wait for 24 hours after first getting a referral to get an abortion.
The ordinance passed by one vote. It became the model for laws in 20 states, and so its establishment and constitutionality were of great concern to both the abortion rights and antiabortion movement.
The Supreme Court struck down several provisions enacted by the Akron council, including the requirement for a 24-hour wait period and parental consent. Also struck down was the need to disclose certain information during the informed consent process, as well as requiring disposal of fetal remains and hospitalization for second-trimester abortions. At the same time, the court upheld a Missouri parental consent law because it was more lenient. It allowed the juvenile woman to get permission from a judge if she didn’t want to tell her parent.
Other states could follow suit. That precedent, which was primarily seen as a victory for the abortion rights side, was weakened by later cases, including Planned Parenthood v. Casey, as the court shifted right.
The Texas ordinances piggyback on SB-8, which bans abortions in Texas after a fetal heartbeat and allows anyone in the public to sue anyone who performs or facilitates an abortion. London said she knows that Dickson won’t stop and that he will target other cities in the Texas panhandle.
“We are fully prepared to help educate those communities about the ordinance and help them fight against it as well,” London said. “We hope that Amarillo, being the largest city in the panhandle, will really set the tone for how other towns in our region will respond to these types of ordinances.”