A tiny Texas town votes against becoming a Sanctuary City for the Unborn. What it means
The Clarendon City Council unanimously voted against a proposed ordinance to declare itself a Sanctuary City for the Unborn.
Brandi D. AddisonA tiny town in the Texas Panhandle will not join the growing list of "Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn," to the surprise of many.
The Clarendon City Council voted 3-0 against the proposed ordinance to declare itself a sanctuary city Thursday evening. The 2,000-person town sits about halfway between Amarillo and the Texas-Oklahoma border, roughly 60 miles from each.
The Clarendon Enterprise wrote in a Facebook comment that the decision came as "city council members said they believe it is not a city issue and that state law already covers this issue."
Here's what we know:
What is a 'Sanctuary City for the Unborn'?
Abortion is illegal in Texas after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, which established the legal right to abortion nationally in 1973. In June 2022, the Supreme Court granted states permission to create their own abortion laws.
Texas has already implemented near-total bans on abortion, but activist Mark Lee Dickson is advocating for municipalities to establish themselves as Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.
This initiative entails prohibiting abortion within the city limits, extending the ban to residents of Clarendon regardless of where the procedure is performed anywhere in the world, restricting the sale and possession of specific medical drugs within the city, and aiming to deter people from traveling through Clarendon to access abortion services.
Enforcement relies on citizens filing lawsuits against other people and abortion providers, according to the proposed ordinance.
More:How many people got abortions in 2023? New report finds increase despite bans
How many abortion sanctuary cities are there?
There are 69 cities across the U.S. that have voted to declare themselves Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn, and 52 are in Texas.
In June 2019, Waskom in East Texas became the first city in the United States to pass an ordinance outlawing abortion within its city limits. The latest to join the list is also in Texas; the Muenster City Council unanimously voted to declare itself a Sanctuary City for the Unborn on April 8.
Most of the cities have populations of 25,000 or fewer, and only four, all in West Texas, have more than 100,000: Abilene, Odessa, San Angelo and Lubbock — the largest Sanctuary City for the Unborn, with a population of 264,000. Its citizens voted in a citywide election to outlaw abortion with 68% of the vote.
More:How Amanda Zurawski has fought for women's reproductive health care in Texas
What's the existing law on abortion in Texas?
Texas has enacted various laws prohibiting abortion, most recently the 2021 Human Life Protection Act, which classifies elective abortions as felonies, imposes civil penalties and revokes the licenses of medical practitioners involved in such procedures.
Some laws predate the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in June 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson. These statutes regained effectiveness after that ruling.
Consequently, Texas laws ban nearly all abortions unless, “in the exercise of a reasonable medical judgment,” a doctor determines that the patient is experiencing “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
Why did the Clarendon City Council vote against the ordinance?
The Clarendon City Council unanimously voted against the ordinance because it did not pertain to municipal government, according to the Clarendon Enterprise.
In an editorial titled "City Should Postpone Action on Sanctuary Proposal," publisher Roger Estlack argued that the city should prioritize addressing pressing issues instead. Given that Texas has already established laws regarding abortion, Estlack suggested that the city's attention should be directed toward other matters.
These include finalizing plans for the opening of an aquatic center, securing the next downtown revitalization grant, replacing a bridge, addressing vandalism and attending to routine tasks such as street repairs, trash collection and water maintenance.
"Abortion has nothing to do with running the City of Clarendon. We elect our mayor and city council and then they hire employees to do important things that affect our daily lives," Estlack wrote. "These are the things that the city council should be focused on instead of wasting their time on an issue that the city literally has no control over. But instead of dealing with our real city issues, Dickson and his followers are hijacking the city agenda, forcing people to take sides, creating stress where it is not warranted ..."
In a comment on the Facebook post in which the newspaper announced the final vote, one resident wrote that the city doesn't "even have doctors here that perform those procedures."
"Abortion is a hot topic but one that people shouldn't interfere with unless it's their bodies," they added.
In an emailed statement, Dickson said several state representatives and government officials from Texas and New Mexico wrote letters in support of the ordinance, adding that "over two dozen residents" told him they wanted him to stay and "fight for this" in their city following Thursday's decision.
"After hearing how much abortion has impacted their lives, there is no way I can abandon these men and women," Dickson said in the statment. "It looks like I will be spending a lot more time in the City of Clarendon."
"It is unfortunate that such a conservative city like Clarendon would reject so much conservative pro-life support to embrace the advice of liberal pro-aborts," he added.