Major Texas City Being Sued Over Taxpayer-Funded Effort to Bypass Abortion Ban
Taxpayers in the liberal-run city of San Antonio, Texas, are potentially going to be paying for women to kill their unborn babies in contravention of state law. A coalition of pro-life groups is seeking to put an end to that.
According to the Texas Tribune, a left-leaning online publication, a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Bexar County — home to San Antonio — seeks to stop $500,000 the city is putting into a “reproductive justice fund” from being used to circumvent the state’s ban on most abortions.
The fund was part of a $3.7 billion budget passed by the San Antonio City Council last month.
In the lawsuit, the coalition of pro-life groups maintains the “fund will provide grants to organizations that pay the travel costs of pregnant women who leave the state to abort their unborn children.
“The organizations that lobbied for this budgetary provision and hope to obtain this taxpayer money include Jane’s Due Process, Avow, the Buckle Bunnies Fund, Sueños Sin Fronteras, and the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity,” the lawsuit noted.
“Many of these organizations facilitate or subsidize out-of-state abortions performed on Texas residents. The Buckle Bunnies Fund also aids or abets illegal self-managed abortions in Texas.”
The plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit that it’s “a criminal offense to engage in conduct in Texas that ‘procures’ a drug-induced abortion — even when the abortion is performed out of state — so long as the procuring conduct occurs within the state of Texas.”
As the Texas Tribune noted, San Antonio “has not yet said how that money will be spent; during City Council hearings, advocates talked mostly about using it to support health education, access to emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.”
“But some City Council members said they would like to see the money used to support nonprofit groups that help Texans travel to other states to get abortions,” the outlet added.
Take Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez: “We need to discuss the opportunities we have to make an impact legally,” he told KSAT-TV last month, apparently including covering travel costs for abortions outside the state.
“As far as we can go, I want to go there — of course, within the confines of state law,” he added.
Councilwoman Teri Castillo, who was one of the prime movers behind the fund, according to KSAT, told the station that funding travel costs for out-of-state abortions would “ideally” be part of the package — as a way to “put money where our mouth was.”
However, Councilman Marc Whyte, a pro-life voice on the council, according to KSAT, initially made a motion to exclude out-of-state abortion access as part of the “reproductive justice fund,” but it was shot down.
So, what will the fund entail? One would think a city of 1.45 million would have discussed this before setting up a half-million dollar fund in the name of “reproductive justice,” but nope: San Antonio only plans to figure out to do with the money later on this fall.
One does not wish to make hasty generalizations, but my time paying attention to American politics has taught me a few rules of thumb.
One of them: Whenever politicians vote on establishing a department or fund with a vague remit and promise to fill in the details later, one can safely assume the worst/most extreme vision possible will almost certainly come to pass. Is anyone else old enough to remember “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it?”
The pro-life groups suing the city aren’t going to wait around to find out what the money is being used for.
“It is a criminal offense to donate money to abortion funds that procure out-of-state abortions for Texas residents,” said Michael Knuffke, president of the San Antonio Family Association — one of the groups involved in the lawsuit — in a media release.
“We will expose the criminal activities of these organizations and put an end to their violent and murderous acts. Anyone involved with these abortion-trafficking organizations, including their donors, will be prosecuted under state law and sued under the Texas Heartbeat Act.”
“The women and families of San Antonio who are facing a crisis pregnancy, and local taxpayers trying to make ends meet do not deserve to be victims of city officials,” added Patrick Von Dohlen, co-founder and board member of the group, according to the release.
“A city that gives taxpayer money to abortion funds will be sued, and any abortion fund that tries to obtain taxpayer money will be subpoenaed and have its activities exposed.”
San Antonio’s liberal lawmakers want to put the citizens’ money where its council members’ mouths are on abortion — and, naturally, that means going as far as the courts will let them.
Hopefully, this legal action means that’s not very far at all.
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