City leaders in Nazareth, Texas voted unanimously Tuesday to pass a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance and ban the killing of unborn babies in abortions in their city.
Nazareth, which is located in the Texas Panhandle, is the 39th city in the U.S. and the 36th in Texas to pass an ordinance banning abortions, said Mark Lee Dickson, director with Right to Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative.
Dickson, who attended the meeting Tuesday, said the council voted 3-0 in favor of the ordinance.
“Over fifty people from the Nazareth community showed up to support the measure,” he said, noting the city population is 311. “Out of those in attendance, not a single person spoke up in opposition.”
The ordinance makes it “unlawful for any person to procure or perform an abortion of any type and at any stage of pregnancy” in the city. It also prohibits “any person to knowingly aid or abet an abortion” in the city. The ordinance also treats abortion-inducing drugs as contraband within the city limits.
The Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement is growing, and it has been effective in protecting unborn babies from abortion.
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The Texan reports Dickson has been extremely busy as cities across the country express interest in passing pro-life ordinances. He told the news outlet that he has not been home in months.
Large or small, the cities’ actions are making an impact for life and gaining the attention of people across America.
To date, 36 cities in Texas, two in Nebraska and one in Ohio have passed pro-life ordinances to outlaw abortions. One city, Omaha, Texas, did repeal its ordinance and pass a non-enforceable pro-life resolution instead.
The ordinance has both public and private enforcement mechanisms. The public enforcement mechanism establishes fines against the abortionist and anyone who helps with an abortion within city limits. However, it cannot be enforced until Roe v. Wade is overturned.
However, the private enforcement mechanism is immediate. It makes abortionists and those who help them “liable in tort to a surviving relative of the aborted unborn child, including the unborn child’s mother, father, grandparents, siblings or half-siblings,” meaning the abortionist can be sued for aborting the unborn child in violation of the ordinance.
Cities in Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and other states also are considering passing Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinances this year.
Though abortion activists have threatened legal action, the cities have been successful in court. In 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union dropped its lawsuit challenging their pro-life ordinances.
In May, voters in Lubbock, Texas overwhelmingly approved a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance on the ballot, and Planned Parenthood was forced to stop aborting unborn babies there. The abortion chain challenged the ordinance, but a judge threw out its lawsuit earlier this summer.
Dickson encouraged anyone interested in seeing a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance pass in their city to sign the online petition at www.