Abortion activists are putting pressure on local governments to promote dangerous self-induced abortions through “sanctuary city” ordinances.
The sanctuary city idea originally began with municipal governments seeking to defy national immigration laws, but, last year, pro-life communities in Texas adopted the idea as a way to protect unborn babies from abortion. So far, 10 Texas towns have passed ordinances declaring their communities to be sanctuaries for the unborn.
Now, abortion activists are pushing back with plans to lobby local governments to do the opposite – become “sanctuaries” for abortion, the pro-abortion news outlet Vice reports.
Abigail Burman, a third-year University of California, Berkeley, law student, recently wrote a paper for the California Law Review advocating for abortion “sanctuary cities.” Specifically, Burman and other abortion activists believe local governments can play a huge role in promoting self-induced abortions, which are illegal in many states, according to the report.
“Conservatives have attempted to co-opt the term ‘sanctuary city’ in the context of abortion,” Burman said. “It’s important to think about how to take that language back and re-envision cities as places that are welcoming to people who seek abortions.”
According to her paper, local governments could provide information about self-induced abortions through their websites and other public venues, run hotlines for people to call when seeking abortions, and more. The report also proposed a gag order to prevent medical workers from reporting illegal abortions to authorities.
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Here’s more:
[NARAL Pro-Choice Texas leader] Aimee Arrambide said these are the kinds of imaginative solutions pro-choice organizers and lawmakers need to be thinking about. She and her colleagues at NARAL Pro-Choice Texas regularly meet with local lawmakers in Austin and Houston—two blue cities in Texas— and she plans to continue conversations about hyper-local responses to barriers to abortion care.
“One thing I’ve learned as an advocate in Texas is that you have to find creative solutions and you make sure you’re exhausting every avenue to bring access to people,” Arrambide said.
The idea of a “sanctuary city” for abortion is extremely dangerous and disturbing because it is not about protecting lives. It is not even about protecting women. It’s about pushing abortion on demand, the killing of unborn babies.
Despite what abortion activists claim, abortions are not rare or heavily restricted. Since Roe v. Wade, more than 61 million unborn babies have been aborted, and nearly 1 million continue to be killed every year. And the U.S. is one of only seven countries in the world that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
America does not need more dead babies and hurting mothers. It needs sanctuary cities that protect the most basic of all human rights, the right to life.
