Lubbock County, Texas, joins a group of other rural Texas counties that have voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions.
This comes after six cities and counties in Texas have passed abortion-related bans, out of nine that have considered them. However, this ordinance makes Lubbock the biggest jurisdiction yet to pass restrictions on abortion-related transportation.
During Monday’s meeting, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County, declaring Lubbock County a “Sanctuary County for the Unborn.”
The ordinance is part of a continued strategy by conservative activists to further restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as the ordinances are meant to bolster Texas’ existing abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
The ordinance, which was introduced to the court last Wednesday, was passed by a vote of 3-0 with commissioners Terence Kovar, Jason Corley and Jordan Rackler, all Republicans, voting to pass the legislation while County Judge Curtis Parrish, Republican, and Commissioner Gilbert Flores, Democrat, abstained from the vote.
Wonder if this is just a preemptive measure to prevent someone from suing the city, claiming they were “aiding and abetting” women seeking abortions? After all, the law is so vague that a Republican extremist (or a Democratic rabble-rouser) could probably argue allowing women to use those roads runs afoul of the law.
By allowing the mother to live freely and not be in a jail cell the moment they have sex, they are aiding and abetting them.
As much as allowing them to own a bank account with which to purchase mifepristone, I’m sure…
So that needs a question answered, very badly. How many lawsuits could a ‘concerned party’ file against every city on the road between a pregnant woman and another state? A few hundred per abortion? If you hit them over the head enough, maybe local politics would turn against the idiocy of the abortion lawsuit law, and that could filter to the state level?