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.
LEAs have been shown to actively track women who use search engines or messaging services to seek information about abortion services. There’s a non-zero chance that women who they suspect, and their friends and family, are tagged in their system when they search the plates of someone passing by.
It’s not about lying to cops, particularly if they can already prove you were seeking those services in the first place. At that point they’ll arrest you with probable cause.
They already use that kind of system with drug dealers. If they suspect you sell drugs, they will tag your name and plate and find a reason to pull you over if they spot you. Why would they hesitate to track women like that?
Arrest on suspicion?
It goes like this:
Whether they are correct in issuing an arrest doesn’t matter for them because they have qualified immunity. They let the courts sort it out.
I was just having this conversation the other day. The person was absolutely confounded how in the world this law would be enforced. I essentially said that it doesn’t matter. Cops will stop you for whatever, arrest you for whatever, send you to jail for whatever, doesn’t matter. If they’re wrong, oh well, that’s the court’s job.