40th City Bans Abortion, Declares Itself a “Sanctuary for the Unborn”

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Oct 14, 2021   |   12:46PM   |   Cisco, Texas

The Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement hit another milestone Tuesday when the 40th city in the U.S. voted to ban the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

Mark Lee Dickson, director with Right to Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative, celebrated the news after the Cisco City Council voted 5-0 to pass a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance.

“The City of Cisco, Texas (population 3,913) became the FORTIETH CITY in the nation, and the thirty-seventh city in Texas, to pass an enforceable ordinance outlawing abortion within their city limits,” Dickson wrote on Facebook. “Way to go Cisco, Texas!”

Dickson said one council member abstained but the rest voted in favor of the pro-life ordinance.

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.

To date, 37 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.

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The Texan recently reported 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.

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.

Large or small, the cities’ actions are making an impact for life and gaining the attention of people across America.

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 several Texas cities’ pro-life ordinances.

Then, 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.sanctuarycitiesfortheunborn.com/online-petition.