Fresno, California Mayor Jerry Dyer promised this week to veto a resolution that would declare the city to be a “defender” of abortions.
KFSN News 30 reports Dyer and Councilmember Garry Bredefeld joined pro-life advocates Tuesday at a rally to oppose the pro-abortion resolution.
“If this council item does come forth, is placed on the agenda and the item is voted upon, rest assured and given the opportunity, I will exercise my veto authority as the mayor of this city,” Dyer said.
In January, Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Esmeralda Soria introduced a resolution to declare the City of Fresno a “defender of health equity and reproductive freedom for all” and to urge Congress to expand abortions, according to the Fresno Bee.
However, Arias and Soria later pulled the resolution from the agenda in January and again this month, likely due to a lack of support.
TAKE ACTION: To show your opposition to this measure, Contact the Fresno City Council.
At the rally Tuesday, Bredefeld slammed the pro-abortion resolution as “political pandering,” the Bee reports. Soria is running for a seat in the state Assembly.
“This resolution supporting abortion is wrong and extremely divisive,” Bredefeld said. “There is no rationale for it being on the council agenda except for radical city council politicians pandering to those in support of abortion.”
He said supporting the killing of unborn babies in abortions is a “complete disgrace.”
To Dyer, the pro-abortion resolution would be “divisive” and counterproductive.
“This resolution won’t add one job, repair a single street, make our neighborhood safer, or help us reduce our homeless population,” the mayor said. “This council resolution was designed to do one thing: to divide this community and to tear this community apart.”
However, Arias told KFSN that they have not given up on the resolution. He criticized the mayor and Bredefeld for wasting time on “political rallies.”
Speaking with The Bee, he said abortion is the city’s business because it is a “woman’s right.”
“It is obvious that women’s rights and voting rights are under unprecedented attack, and it is everyone’s business, including ours,” Arias said. “Spending time responding to potential items not on the council agenda or organizing political rallies is not the best use of time for a city in a housing and homeless crisis.”
California has some of the most pro-abortion laws in the United States, and Gov. Gavin Newsom is working directly with the abortion industry to expand abortions even more in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade later this year. Among other things, the governor wants to use tax dollars to train medical students to be abortionists and pay for abortions for women traveling from other states.
Since 1973, more than 63 million unborn babies and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mothers have died in legal abortions in the United States.
TAKE ACTION: To show your opposition to this measure, Contact the Fresno City Council.
